Boys Town, NE

by Cindy Murphy McMahon

Boys Town, Neb., looks like a typical small town. The lawns of its 76 homes are neatly manicured and its gardens are well-tended. Children ride bicycles on the streets and sidewalks, a mail carrier delivers to curbside boxes, and on Sundays, two churches—one Catholic and one Protestant—draw the faithful in cars and on foot.

The community has its own police department, post office, volunteer fire department, farming operation, and schools. What’s different about Boys Town is that 556 of its 818 residents are children, 18 and younger, who have come to eastern Nebraska from troubled homes across the country.

“Boys Town is one-of-a-kind in America and probably the whole world, because it’s a town of kids,” says the Rev. Val J. Peter, executive director of the world-famous organization for children since 1985, “but also because every adult in the town has only one purpose: to help the kids get better.”

Boys Town has come a long way since its humble beginning in 1917, when the Rev. Edward J. Flanagan, an Irish Catholic priest, opened the doors and his arms to five homeless boys in Omaha, Neb. In 1921, Flanagan moved his home to the 160-acre Overlook Farm, 10 miles outside the city, not only to be autonomous, but because he wanted his boys to learn the valuable lessons farming teaches and grow a portion of their own food. He incorporated the town as an official Nebraska village in 1936.

Since then, Boys Town, now 900 acres surrounded by the burgeoning city of Omaha, has been a hometown and a fresh start for more than 18,500 children.

Boys Town became a household word across America in 1938 with the release of the classic, award-winning movie by the same name, starring Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney. Tracy gave the Oscar he won to Flanagan, and the shiny statue is just one of many historical items visitors can see at the Hall of History. The town is a National Historic Landmark that draws more than 100,000 visitors a year.

Just as children’s needs and problems changed over the years, so has Boys Town gone through some changes, starting with its name. Father Flanagan allowed the boys to name their own town, and by vote they chose Boys Town.

In 2000, the name was once again put to a vote and a majority chose to rename the residential treatment program Girls and Boys Town, reflecting the addition of girls to the campus since the 1970s and outreach services offered to girls and boys in 15 states and Washington, D.C.

Sarah Cambridge, 26, of nearby Ralston, Neb., knows firsthand how Girls and Boys Town helps children. As a resident at age 16, she was elected Boys Town’s first female mayor in 1991, and today she works with other troubled girls as an assistant family-teacher in one of Girls and Boys Town’s family-style homes run by a trained married couple.

“I wanted to give back,” she says. “Without Girls and Boys Town, I wouldn’t be capable of helping even myself, let alone anyone else.”

Sarah’s current counterpart is 17-year-old Amanda Martinez of New Orleans, La., the 98th mayor and the fourth girl to be elected. The village actually is run by an elected adult Board of Trustees as required by state law, but the teen mayor acts as a role model, a liaison with administrators, and an emissary.

Another of the town’s residents, Jeff Sweezy, 18, from Sarasota, Fla., thinks it is important that Girls and Boys Town remain an independent community.

“It’s important that we are our own town,” Sweezy says. “We don’t have to worry about outside distractions such as guns and drugs and gangs. It wouldn’t be the same if we were in a bigger city.”

“It’s easy to get lost in a big city. It’s easy to not feel important,” Father Peter adds. “In a small town, it’s everyone’s job to make the town successful.”

Cindy Murphy McMahon is a freelance writer in Omaha, Neb.

first appeared: 11/25/2001