I have been writing of Byron Dennis for four years. The reason, I think, is one I share with the dozens of people who have come to his rescue:
There is just something about Byron Dennis.
He is 20 now and light years from the abandoned 12-year-old boy who walked away from the downtown shelter where his father one day disappeared, the boy who educated himself and did it so well he ultimately won a scholarship to the Community College of Denver.
Scores of people have pulled for Byron Dennis. And then one day, he was gone. He never graduated. There was no college.
“Oh, man,” he said Tuesday, grabbing my hand and embracing me when I entered the north Denver home of Peter Bunch and Elisa Cohen, his most recent benefactors. “Things are going great now.”
He is employed full time. Yes, he graduated high school. And early last week he finally enrolled at CCD.
His goal is a business certificate to open his own business, maybe a barbershop. The scholarship he had earned those years ago at North High School finally was put to use.
I am proud of this kid. I am blown away by a Denver couple, who not only care about Dennis, but are taking extraordinary steps to turn him into the man everyone knew he could be.
He was 12 when his beloved grandmother, Bobbie McCalister, who was raising him, suffered a stroke. His father, Byron Sr., soon came for him, told him he would never leave. Within a week, his father disappeared from the shelter, and Dennis’ days of living hand to mouth began.
Dennis grows pensive and silent when you bring up his past of bouncing from sofa to sofa. He thinks only of the present and the future, he says, never of the past.
Cohen had read the earlier stories. She had known him, and he had delighted her when he was her student the one year she taught journalism at North High School.
Dennis, by this time last summer, was living in the basement of Joyce Valdez’s Westminster home. He had, in order: Bought an old car, one day got drunk and was caught driving, was arrested and later jailed. He dropped out of school.
Joyce Valdez was moving. She would have no room for him. For reasons Dennis says he still does not understand, he called Elisa Cohen.
“It was strange because after I read of him, I was just about to call him,” she recalled.
She and Peter, after dining with him, agreed to take the young man in. But it would be by their rules.
He had to return to school. He had to register to vote. And he would have to get right with his DUI conviction.
Byron Dennis had literally gone underground in that Westminster basement, out of work and money, and afraid to deal with the terms of his sentence.
Elisa Cohen immediately took him to the Denver court. There was an arrest warrant out for him. She handed him her credit card. She demanded that he pay her back.
She took him to his alcohol classes and subsequent court hearings. She got him enrolled at Emily Griffith Opportunity School to finish his high school work. He graduated.
And she put his name and cellphone number on a work site used by families needing temporary help. He did job after job. Two weeks ago, he finally paid Elisa Cohen back.
She was at a neighborhood political gathering a few months ago when she ran into a representative of a nonprofit that helps the homeless get the work and presentation skills needed to get a job. Well, she told the rep, she knew of a guy.
Byron Dennis now works two days a week in the laundry room of the Oxford Hotel.
A few weeks ago, he volunteered to do some remodeling work with Oxford people at a Denver shelter. The man in charge, who also runs the hotel’s maintenance staff, admired Dennis’ work ethic. Did he need work?
He now works full time on the hotel’s maintenance crew and in the laundry room.
“With school and work, I’m so busy,” the once-homeless boy says. “But I like being busy. I want to be successful. I have a lot of options now.”
Elisa Cohen hears this and catches my eye.
We both look at him and smile.
Bill Johnson writes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Reach him at 303-954-2763 or wjohnson@denverpost.com.
