By by Lydia Grimes – features reporter
Although Steven Dickey did not plan on making a career working at the YMCA, that is where he has found contentment. The degrees that were intended to put him in the classroom setting and on the sports field have proved to be very useful in working at the Y.
He has been a part of YMCA for 21 years - nine years in Vicksburg, Miss., five years in Gainesville as the director, and six years in Petal, Miss. as the director.
Dickey was born and raised in Jackson, Miss. , with his sister. He remembers losing his dad at the age of 15.
Dickey said sports were very important to him while he was growing up. He was also a good student and he graduated from Magnolia High School in Jackson in 1981. He received an athletic scholarship to play baseball and spent the next five years in college. Graduating from Mississippi College in 1986, he planned on being a coach and history teacher, but, as fate would have it, he never put those skills to work in a school.
Dickey has worked with the YMCA for 21 years and this past year received a call from an old friend, Dan Shaddock, who was going to retire from the Y here in Brewton.
He met his wife, Belinda, while he was working in Vicksburg at the YMCA and they were married in 1990. They have two sons of their own, Wes, 16, and Caleb, 14. The family has opened their home to a German exchange student living with them, Paul Ludolph.
Dickey said that Paul is very good on the tennis court.
Belinda Dickey has decided to try staying at home and looking after the family for a while. She has degrees in x-ray technology and is also a paralegal.
Georgia Lanier, a co-worker at the YMCA, said Dickey has fit in nicely.