A Master Teacher of Servant-Leadership through Caregiving: Larry Kinard

by Duane Trammell

Many of our Clients and friends are baby boomers who are caring for aging and ailing parents now. When this happened to me, I remarked…”they should have had a college course in this. I could have used it much more than Algebra.” But somehow, the right people come into our lives when we need them. Larry Kinard has been one of those special people.



Larry was a former manager who worked for TXU (now Luminant) and was in one of our servant leadership development classes for several years. We always liked Larry—he was bright, positive, insightful, witty, and always added dimension to the business challenges we tackled with his colleagues.


Fast forward to 2005. Larry’s life changed. His wife Marty, an educational psychologist had two debilitating strokes. Larry’s fulltime job became caring for Marty which included helping Marty through illnesses, navigating through doctor’s appointments, studying symptoms, treatments, care plans and how to do all the caretaking stuff. Anyone who has done full-time caregiving knows that it demands everything you have mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually…and then some more…and even more. Larry, in his compassion, simply calls it his “Doctor of Marty degree.”


Thanks to facebook, we reconnected with Larry and I came across his blog, “What I Learn from Marty.” In an incredibly humble, sincere, thought-provoking, tearful, humorous, educating, and spiritual (although he wouldn’t take credit for that) way, Larry chronicles the daily adventures of caring for a loved one who can’t care completely for herself.

Things sometimes come to us at exactly the right moment. For 15 years, I cared for my Mom in and out of illnesses. For 12 years, she lived with my Partner and me. In the last three years of her life it became more complex, challenging, and demanding. When I would be exhausted from an E.R. trip or frustrated or simply feeling sorry for myself, I would read one of Larry’s blogs. And it would help. Sometimes he would respond to a facebook post with words of support and encouragement. My caregiving ended over eighteen months ago, but his continues each day.

What I admire so much in Larry is that he not only cares for Marty, his beloved, but he also shares the most vulnerable part of himself with all of his readers—the little things he finds joy and meaning in AND the doubts, fears, anxieties, and frustrations that come with the territory. I look forward to Larry’s blog posts, although sometimes they are emotionally challenging to read. They evoke feelings, memories, and make me look at myself in ways that I wouldn’t otherwise. And when I want to bolster up my own servant leadership skills, I learn from Larry and his daily journey. Thanks, Larry.

Larry Kinard’s Blog “What I Learn from Marty” can be found at: http://martytalks.blogspot.com/

A Taste of Servant Leadership

If you go to Celebration Restaurant expecting excellent food and outstanding service, you will leave happy and satisfied. You will, however, have just experienced the two more visible reasons for the success of Celebration. The back story is that Celebration Restaurant and Market is a servant leadership organization.
There are many examples of how Ed Lowe and his partners have implemented servant leadership in both their professional and personal lives. One that comes to mind now is the story of Celebration’s Farmers’ Market which reopened for the 2011 season on April 30th. This story demonstrates two-way accountability, empowering people to be successful, and making a difference for the people served.
 
Celebration has long supported local farmers by serving their produce in the restaurant. The team began to discuss ways to strengthen this support and hit on the idea of a farmers’ market. Then because of the demands of work, the idea stalled. Finally Leah Ferraro, the manager of the Market, asked Ed about the status of the Farmers’ Market and when he told her he had been too busy to move on it, she asked two questions: l. Why hadn’t he asked for help? and 2. Would it be okay for her to take over the project? Ed gratefully turned it over to her and then supported her all the way.

Leah soon found that the easy part was lining up the vendors to come while the hard part was dealing with the City of Dallas. She kept running up against different stories as to what permits she needed, only to finally learn that the permit she was told to get didn’t actually exist. There were clear regulations for the large Dallas Farmers’ Market but all sorts of contradictory rules for the smaller ones. covering such things as health insurance, vendor fees and number of vendors. Leah eventually partnered up with some of the other smaller community markets to go before the city and change the regulations for these smaller markets. All along the way, she had the support and advice from Ed and her other Celebration partners.