Tarshawn Whitehead makes no secret that he struggled to get through college — it took 10 years — but his new boss said his work ethic is one reason she hired him.
Whitehead, 30, was hired in August as the new unit director for the Dardanelle site of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the River Valley.
He earned a degree in wellness science from Arkansas Tech University in Russellville after flunking out his first semester as a choral-music major.
“I didn’t even think I would go to college. In third grade, I was told I wasn’t college material,” Whitehead said. “I wasn’t the best student.”
He said he has a learning disability in math reasoning and attention deficit disorder. He also has a twin sister, Tarshica, who lives in Fort Smith, where they graduated in 2008 from Fort Smith Southside. “She’s very, very smart,” he said.
Megan Selman, CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs of the River Valley, said Tarshawn Whitehead has all the qualities she was looking for in a unit director. He had worked the past five summers with the camps.
“He is just naturally gifted with kids,” she said.
She said that because he struggled in school, he has empathy and can share his experience with the students.
“I was a speech pathologist for 10 years before I became the CEO here. I worked with kids with disabilities … and I really knew what he was talking about when he was describing his disabilities,” Selman said.
“He’s one of our hardest workers, and you see that because he’s had to work so hard to do things that may come easy for some college students. It makes him a great leader and a compassionate person.”
She said Whitehead is a role model for students at the Boys & Girls Club who also struggle with school.
“That [struggle] doesn’t have to set a limitation for them. He does compensatory strategies when he has to manage grants,” she said. “I’ve seen him come in early and get the job done.
“He’ll tell you, ‘Sometimes I have to work twice as hard, and I have to be twice as organized for things that come easily for some students.’ I admire that; I don’t think that’s a disadvantage,” Selman said.
Whitehead credits his high school choral music teacher, Gaye Mings, with encouraging him to pursue a college degree. She was hired at the school his senior year, he said, and that’s when he started to excel.
“She invested time into me,” he said.
Mings said Whitehead is a student she’ll never forget, and she is honored to have played a role in his life.
“He expressed to me his desire to further his education but just didn’t think it was in the cards for him. I told him that I knew he could do anything he set his mind to doing and that I would help him in any way,” Mings said. “Tarshawn is just one of those special students — the kind who make teaching so fun and rewarding.
“He was in choir here at Southside before I became the choir director, so he could’ve approached me with skepticism, but he never did. He had that huge smile on his face every single day and was always willing to do whatever I asked of him.”
Whitehead said that with Mings’ guidance, he made all-region and all-state choirs his senior year.
“My senior year, I’m thinking I’m going to follow my dad’s footsteps and go into the Army,” he said.
A son of Wanda and Edgar Whitehead of Fort Smith, Tarshawn and his sister were born in Germany, where their father was stationed, Tarshawn said.
However, he said Mings drove him to Arkansas Tech in Russellville to audition, and he earned a vocal-music scholarship. He enrolled at Tech and filled his first semester with 18 hours of music courses.
“I thought I was going to be a choral music director,” he said.
There was just one problem: He couldn’t read music.
“I sang in church; we just rehearsed till we got it,” he said. “I just developed an ear for music.”
When he failed his music courses, he continued to struggle for a year before changing his major to wellness science.
“I was determined; I didn’t want to just accept that would be it,” he said.
Eventually, he went back home to Fort Smith because he struggled in a math class that he retook.
“I wasn’t applying myself,” he said.
Whitehead got a job at Valley Behavioral Health System in Fort Smith as a mental-health paraprofessional.
“That’s where I fell in love with taking care of and seeing about people, and I developed a passion for helping people,” he said.
In 2014, he started working at Friendship Community Care in Russellville, a nonprofit for people with disabilities. Whitehead served as an aide on the weekends for one of the clients, helping the man with day-to-day living, whether helping him cook or providing transportation.
“I kind of got the itch to go back to school,” Whitehead said.
One of his first classes after he returned was in physical education, Adaptations to PE. He said it involved setting up games that students with developmental or physical disabilities and typically developing students can enjoy together.
Through that class, he had to do a clinical rotation and worked in a Russellville middle school with a special-education class. He got involved with Special Olympics and fell in love with that, too, he said.
“I wanted to be in a coaching environment; that’s why I went to wellness science. I wanted to be in that coaching environment and make people better,” Whitehead said.
The former middle linebacker in high school coaches Special Olympians in everything from bocce to basketball.
He attended classes at Arkansas Tech five days a week, then went to work three hours a day at the Boys & Girls Club in Russellville.
“I got with the clubs, because one, I love kids,” he said. “Mom always told me, ‘It’s crazy, because kids love you,’” he said. “I love chaos. I love controlled chaos; that’s the club.”
As life went on and he continued to work on his degree, he began working for the Boys & Girls Club of the River Valley in the summer at camps and “filling in here and there.”
“That gave me more time for Special Olympics stuff,” he said.
He graduated in December 2018 with the help of Arkansas Rehabilitation Services, he said.
“They gave me all the tools to get through school — a study lab, a tutor, somebody to proctor exams,” he said.
Mings said Whitehead brought his Arkansas Tech graduation announcement to her at Fort Smith Southside and thanked her for helping him.
“I told him it was my great pleasure, and we shared a big hug and tears of joy and celebration. He will always be one of the very special ones,” she said.
He was looking for a full-time job when he got his current position.
“Honestly, I didn’t even see that coming,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing after [Arkansas Tech]. I left that up to God. I guess it was the right place at the right time.”
Whitehead said he had asked Selman, whose office is at the Russellville site, for a recommendation in his search for a job.
“My goal was to be in Special Olympics, but they didn’t have any positions open,” he said.
One day when he went to pick up his paycheck, Selman said she told Whitehead about the Dardanelle unit-director opening.
“Tarshawn definitely came to mind when that position became open — he had the experience, the background and had just graduated,” she said. Selman said she’d seen his hard work and thought he’d be a great fit.
“I haven’t regretted it for a second,” she said.
Mings said, “I just can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of Tarshawn. … I think his personality is just perfect for this job, and I am so, so proud of him. I know he will touch the lives of many young people.”
He goes to Russellville at 11 a.m., where he touches base and handles any paperwork he needs to fill out or sign, then gets to the Dardanelle site by 2:30 p.m. where he handles the day-to-day operations. He runs the programs funded by grants.
“I love my staff, first of all — they take care of me,” he said.
“The kids get here at 3 [p.m.] and leave at 6 [p.m.] I stay and do paperwork and clean up the club,” he said. “I look over about, on average, 110 kids … the lowest is about 80 kids. It’s a small club. That’s 110 kids in a two-story building that has probably a capacity of 300 people.
“My highlight is just interacting with the kids,” he said, who range in ages from 6 to 18.
An immediate change he made is to schedule a rotation for the students to eat.
“When I came in that first day, we had 95 kids eating at one time in an eating area. Some were sitting on the floor; they were just eating,” he said.
Now the students eat at different times, based on when they enter the club.
“A lot of them, they don’t come from the best situations,” Whitehead said. “The kids haven’t been dealt the great hands. I don’t have any bad kids. I don’t believe in bad kids; I believe in misunderstood kids. The ones who test you just want attention. I give them good attention. They learn you’re here for them.
“I got three hours to give them attention; that’s all I have. They may not ever get that attention at home. We try to give them structure. Every kid needs a solid level of structure, love and consistency. My dad gave me structure, love and consistency. My dad is awesome. Respect is what he believed in.”
Whitehead said he came from a middle-class family who could have spoiled him with material items, but they were more concerned about instilling values in him, he said. That’s what he wants to do with the children he interacts with at the Boys & Girls Club.
“I’m still pouring into them to instill, once again, everything I got instilled in me. Structure and all that. I’ve got three hours … to love these children, to show them they have someone here. If they don’t have anybody else, they can look forward to coming to the club and getting consistency.
“They’ve seen people come in and out of their lives. I’m not saying I’ll be at the club forever, but I certainly don’t see myself leaving the club anytime soon. I’ll be here. I feel like I have more to offer,” Whitehead said.
And when he commits to something, he doesn’t give up.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-5671 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.