Youth of the Year deserving of cheers

Kainen Bell proves you can have a big idea of yourself without having a big head.

At 17, he doesn’t waste an atom of energy on false modesty, or on vanity.

“I want to show a positive image of a young African-American male,” the Stadium High School senior said Friday, the morning after Boys & Girls Clubs of South Puget Sound named him Youth of the Year. “I have to inspire people.”

Lives depend on it. Futures hang on whether he can convince other young people that the life he’s making is cooler, happier, more exciting than the competition’s offer of gangs and drugs.

He was born into classic disadvantages. There was violence in his family before it splintered. His single mom worked to support her children, and still made so little that they needed assistance.

That’s how he came to the East Side and Al Davies Boys & Girls Clubs. He was 5 or 6, and needed a safe, affordable place to go after school.

The clubs were the right fit for the values he was learning from his church and his mom, Christine Bell.

“Respect others. Respect my elders,” he said. “Have a faith. I believe in Christ and put God first. Help those in need. Get the highest education possible.”

He watched his mom earn degrees from Tacoma Community College and University of Washington Tacoma, and he listened to his mentors at the club celebrate education. When he brought in the best grades of his life at Jason Lee Middle School, those mentors told him A’s were his style. They supported him as he worked for more of them. He felt included, protected – and cool.

At the club’s Bott Lab he wrote music and made photographs. In Hilltop Artists, he blew glass. He took up football, basketball, baseball, track. He’s in his church’s youth group. He jumped into student government and extra educational programs.

He hit a nice rhythm with all of it, and turned it into a lifestyle.

Every time a friend offered him a taste of gangs and drugs, he was engaged elsewhere.

“I didn’t want to jeopardize any of those activities,” he said. “At the Boys & Girls Club you can get suspended or expelled. At school you get expelled. That would jeopardize your whole career. That would mess up your life.”

It’s his job, right now, to be the visible alternative to that.

“I am a huge influence on people,” he said. “A lot of people look to me for inspiration.”

As if on cue, the school announcements came over the intercom in the office where we were talking. Principal Gail Barnum told the students about Bell’s award.

Even behind two sets of closed doors, we heard the cheers from the classrooms.

Being admired is half the game. Bell is the popular guy who turns around and befriends the person who needs it most and expects it least.

“It’s having a smile, being cool, being funny, and talking to them, helping them solve their problems,” he said. “Like an older brother.”

It’s teaching the other cool guys, as Bell does, that “there’s a great satisfaction when you’re doing the good thing, the right thing.”

It’s being a tutor and a mentor at Al Davies. It’s telling kids he applied to 11 colleges, and has been accepted by the 10 he’s heard from. His choice is Morehouse College in Atlanta.

It’s showing them how he, a kid with no money, will pay for it.

“I have a big chart of all my scholarships, how much I could receive, and how much I have received so far,” he said. “My goal it to go to college without loans.”

He can do it, he said. He’ll stand as the proof that they, if they want it badly enough, can too.

He tells them he wants to work on four continents while he’s young. He hasn’t decided on the work or picked the continents. He’ll do that as he gathers experience.

“I feel I can be really successful in anything,” he said. “I just want to see what it is.”

Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
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