Gary Lees
Editor’s note: This is the first story in a series on the Brookfield Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame Class of 2025.
Gary Lees ran track in high school and likes to use a running race as a metaphor for life.
In his race of life, Lees has encountered many stumbling blocks, but was able to overcome them through faith, hard work and the support of those around him.
Probably the 1967 Brookfield High grad’s most persistent stumbling block is a reading disability. Though it troubles him less than it used to, it still steps in front of him on occasion.
“When he went to school, some of the teachers understood, and some didn’t,” said Lees’ wife. Serafina, who introduced him at the Brookfield Distinguished Alumni Hall of Fame induction banquet. “The ones that didn’t treat Gary pretty badly. It gave him a bit of a complex because he figured he wasn’t worth anything. If they said he was stupid, he was stupid, and that’s all there was to it.”
Lees sometimes acted out in school as a result of his difficulties, Mrs. Lees said.
However, Lees’ family knew he wasn’t stupid and didn’t give up on him or his education. His mother and grandmother sat with him and made him read the daily newspaper to them.
“His father handled it a different way,” Mrs. Lees said. “He would take them on vacations, and he would take them to different places so that Gary and (sister) Marilyn could see the world through their eyes and not completely through book learning and realize seeing things is as important as reading things.”
Lees played football as well as ran track and that motivated him to devote effort to his studies because he had to keep his grades up to play, Lees said.
Lees was determined to attend college and started working while in high school to earn money for it, first at Ferrara Brothers Market in Masury, and then at Sharon Steel in Farrell. The summer Sharon Steel gig turned into a full-time job after high school, but the job was terminated – another stumbling block along Lees’ race of life.
Lees was hired at General Fireproofing in Youngstown, but that job also went out from under him. A professor at Youngstown State University, where Lees was studying criminal justice and sociology, encouraged Lees to apply to George Junior Republic in Grove City, the residential treatment center for youthful offenders. As a youth caseworker at George Junior, he was closer to his career goals. However, he lost that job when the student population fell.
Stumbling block after stumbling block.
Lees found work in a totally unrelated field as an orthopedic aid, and later as an operating room technician, at Greenville Hospital. He stayed there for 10 years until he finally earned his college degree.
The Trumbull County courts hired Lees as a youth probation officer. But, considering his work history, he needed a “back up,” and he ran for Brookfield Township trustee. In these two jobs, he found his niche.
“My heart was always in this school and the community,” he said.
As a probation officer, Lees saw something of himself in the boys who faced stumbling blocks and had trouble knowing how to get around them. He dedicated himself to addressing truancy in Trumbull County and created the first-in-the-state juvenile community service program for nonviolent offenders.
“I refused to take pay for these weekends,” Lees said of community service activities. “I supervised the juveniles doing yard work, snow removal, leaf raking and spring cleanup.”
He recalled former Trustee Janalyn Saloom joining him on one of those community service endeavors when more than 900 dumped tires were collected in the Ulp Street area.
As a trustee, he turned the strong bonds of family and community that had been focused on him back on Brookfield. While he worked to extend sanitary sewer lines, put up streetlights and address constituent issues, he didn’t do it alone. His fellow trustees were just as committed as he was, and county, state and federal officials came on board for specific projects, such as getting Brookfield Center named an historic district, he said.
Lees’ interest in children, reading and addressing learning disabilities early led him to create the First Book program, which provided books to newborns and encouraged parents to read to their children.
He instituted a community garden program at the elementary school to teach kids the lessons of teamwork and diligence, and used the garden as a metaphor for the students’ own growth and development.
Now retired as a probation officer and a township trustee, he has taken up a new calling – mentoring children in Warren who have learning disabilities.
“I enjoy helping the youngsters learn reading and math,” he said. “These children are basically me in the second grade. This mentoring program lets me tell the children I had their same problem when I was their age, and even now. Each week, I pray for the ability to help these students learn to read just as my mother and grandmother helped me so long ago.”
Lees stresses that it’s OK that the kids don’t read as well as other children.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said he tells them. “It will get better. Just keep trying and never give up.”
