Mississippi’s 2009 Parent of the Year is a Vicksburg man who raised his children and has come back to volunteer for more.

The Rev. Troy Truly, natural dad to two and proxy parent to many, received his award Friday from the state Board of Education in Jackson.

“I have won competitions in high school, and in the military I won a top award,” Truly said. “I’ve participated in a lot of rewarding things but, by far, this award means the most. It really speaks volumes to the work we are doing.”

In winning the honor, Truly rose through individual school, district, and then congressional district levels, his volunteer work measured against the contributions of hundreds of parents statewide. Other finalists came from Laurel, Brandon and New Albany.

Truly’s first nomination came from his volunteering at Vicksburg Intermediate School, but he also was supported by a communitywide youth ministry he and his wife, Joan, call Eagle’s Nest.

The ministry aims first to provide love, structure, support and fatherly guidance to boys whose own family lives have fractured, for any number of reasons, including illness, drug or alcohol abuse or control and discipline issues. Second, the Trulys hope to build or rebuild family relationships and make it possible for the boys to return home.

The goal is restoration — first of the boy, then the family.

Since 2007, the Trulys have taken more than a dozen boys into their home, some for just a few weeks and others for much longer. They currently are guardians to two boys, one of whom has lived in the Truly home for two years but is making the transition to living with his own father for the first time in his life.

Retiring Grove Street School principal Charlie Tolliver calls Truly “a tremendous asset to this community.”

Tolliver has known Truly since Truly’s days on the basketball court at Warren Central High School. The young man who used to act — as many young ballplayers do, Tolliver noted — as if the world revolved around him now seeks ways to make a difference in that world.

“Not only has he raised his own children, he has reached out to help others become successful,” Tolliver said. “He is a role model for a lot of young people who are coming up now.”

Only part of Truly’s ministry to the community is the work at home. Other projects have included crisis intervention workshops in the public schools, reading and other literacy-building activities, and a father-son and father-daughter lunch at Vicksburg Intermediate to build family relationships and help fathers understand how important they are in their children’s lives.

“Mr. Truly and his wife are angels who provided blessings throughout the year, first, to their two foster care children and then to all those they came in contact with directly and indirectly,” VIS Principal Sharon Williams said. “No request was ever too small or too large. Vicksburg Intermediate was a better place because of their unconditional love and support they gave the students and the faculty and staff.”

Truly, 46, never wanted to be anything but a soldier. He came up through Vicksburg schools, graduated from Warren Central in 1981, then joined the Army. After serving at bases in the United States and West Germany, an injury forced him to retire in 1991. He hardly knew what to do.

“I was searching, looking for life after the military,” Truly said. “I had no desire to be a civilian. I was a soldier. That’s who I was and who I am.”

He’d always had an interest in counseling and helping others, so he went to work for service agencies in and around Vicksburg and focused on developing his skills as a mentor to other men and teaching family and fatherhood workshops. He began to get involved in the schools as he and his wife raised a son, Troy Jr., now 27, and a daughter, Maria, 25.

Their home was also a magnet for neighborhood children as well as nieces, nephews and church kids. “Children were just drawn to our home,” he said.

One reason Truly thinks he has received the honor is because he exhibits a soldier’s commitment and character to the boys in his care.

“I still consider myself a soldier,” he said. “The boys see me behaving like one — being submissive to others, taking orders, following through with instructions, humble but still being firm in how I treat them and others. Being a man.” Ordained a minister in 2005, he’s got a hat that proclaims he’s “In God’s Army.”

The boys are sent to live with the couple by the Warren County Youth Court and Mississippi Department of Human Services. “I like to tell them, ‘You are not jaybirds or sparrows.’ I tell them to soar like eagles.” The reference comes from a verse in the Old Testament book of Isaiah.

Jon’te Stevens, 13, has lived with the Trulys for about a year. “We learn more,” Jon’te said, when asked why he loves living there. “We learn how to be a better person, how to conduct ourselves, how to be a man.” Jon’te hopes to go to college and study art someday.

But it’s not all work and study. Williams said Truly also “knows his way around a barbecue grill,” and the couple take the boys on vacation to Florida and make sure there is plenty of fun and pleasure in their lives.

Former Eagles Nest boys stay in touch. One invited Truly to his GED ceremony at Grove Street School in May, then called a few weeks later to ask advice as he registered for classes at Hinds Community College.

Another called to say he was going on his first date, and asked what to do.

VIS counselor Alicia Sharp said Truly lives his beliefs, turning lives around with his ministry. “He’s taken children who could be called homeless, or abandoned, or incorrigible — and each of those words could be describing different people,” she said. “They could be called any number of names. He takes them into his home, loves them, gives them stability, gives them the structure they need in order to be successful, somebody who will be there when they fall, and not scream and yell at them. He’s there for them every step of the way, good or bad.”

“What is key about what we do is that we allow them to be children but with boundaries,” Truly said. “And they need consistency, not to be treated better or worse than another in the same condition.”

Eric Matthews, 12, began living with the Trulys two years ago. His mother is terminally ill. His father had been in and out of his life, but had not been involved as a full-time father. Truly has overseen the boy’s education, provided a stable home and a spiritual compass and modeled the behavior of an involved parent. He also went to Eric’s father and stepmother and initiated a repaired, strengthened relationship.

Eric has begun spending more and more time at his father’s home, staying there on a trial basis to make sure all are prepared to live together. Then Truly will let go — the most difficult aspect of the ministry.

“The hard part is that you become attached,” Truly said. “But father-son is a very special relationship, and it gives us great joy to see a father reconciled to his son and a son reconciled to his father.”

Truly’s own childhood was stable but he desperately wished his stepfather, a truck driver always on the road, would be more involved in his life. “I felt this painful, silent frustration with what was essentially fatherlessness,” he said. “I don’t condemn him for it, but he just was not there. I spent a lot of time just observing other people, watching other men interact with their children.”

But he also believes God placed people in his life who could help him, including coaches, and says he could do none of it without Joan.

“We devote of lot of time now in the evening to the ministry of taking care of these boys,” Truly said. “We pour into them whatever we can and go from there.”

Truly carries around a letter from one of the Eagle’s Nest boys which says, “Thank you for introducing life to me and giving me a second chance.” It urges him never to give up.

“I guess with me it’s so hard to separate myself, to pause for a moment and say, ‘You’ve achieved,’ because there are still boys who need help,” he said. “I have to go from thinking about winning this award to arranging for a 12-year old to see his mother, maybe for the last time.”

Truly said he will try to take some time to let the honor sink in. But not for long.

“The work is still ongoing. The war is still at hand.”

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Contact Pamela Hitchins at phitchins@vicksburgpost.com