Youths’ Beloved Mentor Closes Learning Center, Begins Home Visits

The man they call “the Colonel” has lost his command and the children have lost their learning center.

Retired Lt. Col. Tom Norris, who for the last five years has tutored and acted as a father figure for 45 inner-city youths in the backyard of his home in the West Adams district, has been forced by his insurance company to close his highly praised operation.

A letter from the insurance firm said it was concerned by the presence of the children in the home, and threatened to cancel Norris’ property insurance policy.

Torn between getting another higher-priced insurance policy and closing the learning center, Norris has devised an alternative strategy: Instead of the youths coming to the Norris household, where they learned about computers, did homework and played basketball, Norris is making home visits.

The change is challenging for a man who sometimes uses a wheelchair when he is stricken with pain from cancer treatments that forced him out of the military.

On Wednesday, with the rain coming down steadily, Norris entered his home on 25th Street after a morning of tutoring three youths at a nearby apartment. Soaked and hunched over, carrying a chalkboard, school supplies and several textbooks, he plopped onto a sofa.

“I’m hoping he can do this, but it is hard on him,” said Norris’ wife, Marianne Mueller. Many of the apartments are upstairs, and Norris is forced to walk up the stairs with his cane. “I’ll be watching him like a hawk.”

She won’t be alone.

From her apartment, 9-year-old Stacy Salazar spoke with the concern of an elder looking out for Norris. “I don’t like Tom coming to people’s houses,” said Stacy. “It’s just too hard on him.”

One of Norris’ staunchest supporters is Los Angeles City Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas, who represents the area.

“I believe there is enough goodwill in Los Angeles to get the program back up and running,” said Ridley-Thomas, who added that he was making pitches to the public and private sectors to raise funds for Norris to establish a permanent learning center. “This is just too good a thing to let slip away.”

Along 25th Street, several children appeared downcast.

“Nobody comes out much anymore since Tom had to close,” said Marvin Ramos, 14. “Everybody really misses the place.”