Boy Scouts to honor community leaders

Pamela Johnson-Betts

Ed Bozarth

By John Chambers

SPECIAL TO THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL

The Jayhawk Area Council Boy Scouts of America will present major service awards to three Topekans today at the Holiday Inn West Holidome.

To be honored with the 2003 Whitney M. Young Jr. Service Award are William "Bill" Richards, Pamela Johnson-Betts, and Ed Bozarth.

Robert Bugg, an executive board member of the Jayhawk Area Council, will present the awards on behalf of the council. The guest speaker will be the Rev. Delmar White, former pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church and now pastor of Paseo Baptist Church in Kansas City, Mo. A reception will begin at 6 p.m., and dinner will start at 7 p.m.

The Young award honors the late social worker and civil rights leader. Young was the executive director of the National Urban League from 1961 to 1971.

The award recognizes outstanding service by an individual or organization for demonstrated involvement in Young's dream of justice and equality for all, and implementation of Scouting opportunities for youth from rural or low-income urban backgrounds.

Richard Fisher, Jayhawk Area Council Scout executive, said all three honorees had worked to effect changes in the community to help children.

Richards has done this as president of the Topeka NAACP. Johnson- Betts was appointed last February by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to head the Kansas Department on Aging. Ed Bozarth, owner of Ed Bozarth Chevrolet dealership in Topeka, has been a supporter of youth through such organization as the Boy Scouts, and Boys and Girls Clubs.

Johnson-Betts, before she was named to head the Kansas Department on Aging, had served for three years as executive director of the Kansas African-American Affairs Commission. She had worked for five years as a social worker for Topeka Unified School District 501 and for another five years in the office of government and community relations for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.

Bozarth grew up in Carbondale, where he was a member of Boy Scout Troop 113. He has been a major contributor to inner-city Scouting programs.

He began his career by pumping gas in his father's service station, and began selling Dodge cars in 1966. In the early 1970s, Bozarth bought several Topeka auto dealerships and sold them when he bought the Topeka Chevrolet dealership in 1986. Since then, he has bought four auto dealerships in Colorado --- two in Denver and one each in Grand Junction and Colorado Springs.

Richards is president of the Topeka branch of the NAACP and a former state lobbyist for that organization. He has served on various local boards, including United Way of Greater Topeka, Topeka Volunteer Center, the Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging, and the Kansas Ombudsman board.

A 27-year U.S. Army veteran, Richards retired in 1970 as a lieutenant-colonel in the Signal Corps. He earned 10 medals in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War.

He retired after 12 years of service as the state commissioner of income maintenance and medical services, and has served as the state director of social services, assistant director of the Kansas Commission on Alcoholism, and acting secretary of the Kansas Department on Aging.

Copyright 2003
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