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Dance helps him handle hardships: Sister’s murder and other family troubles have not dimmed teen’s bright future
By MALCOLM GARCIAThe Kansas City Star
Sam Lockridge has considered it, come close even, but still can’t quite bring himself to write to the man who murdered his sister.
Why my sister? he wants to ask him. Why her?
Five years later, the burden of her death still weighs on him. He struggles against depression. An 18-year-old senior at Schlagle High School, Sam takes college courses as part of a dual enrollment program with the University of Missouri-Kansas City. He will attend Florida A&M University in the fall.
College, his teachers have told him, will be even more challenging than Schlagle, where he has already set a high bar for himself. He maintains an A average, plays basketball, runs track, and performs in the school marching band and with Releve, a dance troupe of the Kansas City, Kan., School District that practices Monday nights.
He has loved dancing ever since he began imitating a tap dancer he saw on “Sesame Street.” The way he moved. The joy on his face. Sam taught himself watching movies. Tap, ballet, jazz, hip hop. Sam dances to relax.
However, he never fully relaxes.
His sister Tameika Jackson died June 10, 2002. According to court testimony, Darrell Lamont Stallings fatally shot her and four others, motivated by revenge for the attempted robbery and beating of his mother that April.
Prosecutors said that Stallings shot two people, killing one, because he thought they played a role in the crime, and that he killed Tameika and three others because they were witnesses. He was sentenced to five consecutive “hard 50” life terms.
Sometimes Sam thinks it would be better to visit Stallings than write to him. Why’d you do it? Face to face. He can’t forgive him, but perhaps meeting him would lead to acceptance.
“Sam the man!” a custodian shouts to him in the high school cafeteria.
Sam, wearing a faded striped shirt and jeans, waves and smiles a weary grin that barely stretches into his cheeks. Between two part-time jobs, he averages 50 to 60 hours a week. In the afternoon and some weekends, he sells shoes at the Nike outlet store in The Legends shopping center. He also works the graveyard shift at Federal Express and gets off about 7 a.m.
Despite his work hours, he holds a 4.3 grade-point average. In April he was one of 50 high school seniors nationwide out of 90,000 applicants who won a $20,000 scholarship from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation. Sam flew to Atlanta for the awards ceremony. Schlagle staff helped with his travel expenses, including a donation of $500 from special education teacher David Flick, who never had Sam as a student but was impressed by his accomplishments.
Sam catches up on his sleep wherever he can. He often takes a pillow to school and naps in the band room before his classes.
Band director Reginald May worries that Sam pushes himself too hard. Sam, a drum major, has asthma. You don’t know how not to give 100 percent, he tells Sam. Tone it down. You’ll have an asthma attack.
Yes, Daddy May, says Sam.
Sam hasn’t seen his father in years. He lives with his grandmother, who takes care of his mother. She has multiple sclerosis and is blind and paralyzed from the neck down. She has been sick all of Sam’s life. It hurts him to see her so ill and using a wheelchair. He spends very little time at home. He text-messages Mr. May whenever his mother is hospitalized.
“A lot of you know what it’s like not to have a father,” Sam told an assembly of Schlagle students on Tuesday when the school recognized him for his scholastic achievements. “A lot of you know I call Mr. May ‘Daddy May.’ This is why. Mr. May has been that father figure to me. He keeps me up when I need it. So I dedicate this award to him.”
Mr. May embraced Sam. When the applause faded, he reminded the students why Sam had succeeded.
“What I admire about Sam is that he is able to keep his friends,” Mr. May said. “Some of them are not on the same path as Sam. He does not belittle you. But he has a different agenda. Sam comes from Wyandotte County, Sam comes from Kansas City, Kansas, Sam can hang with the crowd, but he can also separate himself so that he can achieve what he has. The rest of you need to follow his path.”
Sam has known violence all his life and takes it as a given. Walk to the corner store, see a body in the alley. Walk from the bus stop, hear gunshots. Walk to church, run for cover.
He got into the street life in his early teens, but he knew it wasn’t for him. He doesn’t know why – he just knew. Maybe because his mother attended college before she got sick. Maybe some of her desire for an education passed on to him. He doesn’t know and doesn’t dwell on it.
The year Tameika died, Sam lost an uncle to natural causes. Another uncle shot himself in front of Sam and died. At first Sam’s mind went blank. Then he started dreaming about the suicide. Not so much now. He has little time to sleep.
In January, inmates from Lansing Correctional Facility spoke to Schlagle students about prison life. Sam talked with one of the prisoners afterward. He asked whether he knew Stallings. The prisoner did. He killed my sister, Sam said.
He misses Tameika’s presence. She was shy, but she was goofy once she knew you. She was laid-back, gentle and kind. He was in Michigan at a basketball camp when she died. His grandmother told him. He didn’t know what to say. Then he got hysterical. He looked for Stallings. His whole family did, but the police found him first.
Three years ago, even a year ago, if Sam had come across Stallings, he would have hurt him, for real. He has friends now to keep him straight. His teachers – voice and music instructor Darryl Ammons, English teacher Peggi Fields, coach Steve Szczygiel, Mr. May – would be on him if he started thinking crazy. They would tell him he has too much to lose. He knows that, feels it with a confidence that transcends his anger and grief.
Still he asks, Why Tameika? He understands he will never find an adequate answer. But he hopes the search for one will help him learn to live with his questions and move on to college and with his life.
“Hey, Sam!” a kid shouts.
He smiles his tired grin again and rubs his face, running his fingers through his short hair as he reaches up and stretches.
At Florida A&M he will double-major in business marketing and performance arts with a minor in education. He wants to go into international marketing.
After he establishes himself, he will return to Kansas City, Kan., to develop a performance art school to prove talent exists in poor neighborhoods. He would teach dance.
Dance comes before anything. As his feet move across the floor and his mind absorbs the music, he rises above clouds. He has no more questions about his sister or anything.
At these moments, he sees clearly the way forward.
The Star’s Malcolm Garcia is spending this year with students at Schlagle High School in Kansas City, Kan. His stories will examine the challenges some of the teens and teachers face and how they try to surmount them.
Surrounded by violence, many urban teens have developed perspectives fitting for their environment. Trust no one. Emotion indicates weakness. Scholastic achievement has no merit on the street. Life outside their neighborhood belongs to another world.
These teens need the support of family, teachers, social workers and mentors. They must risk believing the advice of those who push them to consider a future where surviving beyond high school is not a surprise but a given.