wfn.org | Song about school bullies draws interest in wake of shootings

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

April 11, 2001 News media contact: Tim Tanton*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{175}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this report. 

By Tim Tanton*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Everyone knows a Howard Gray, and many people have
been in his skin, enduring the experience of being an unpopular child
tormented by classmates.

The ridicule heaped on a grade-school classmate led songwriter Lee Domann to
compose "Howard Gray." The song, which he wrote about 20 years ago, is
getting renewed attention in classrooms and pulpits as the result of school
shootings around the United States.

The ballad has been recorded many times over the years, and Domann received
about two dozen orders for the video after the March shootings at Santana
High School in Santee, Calif.

"I have no doubt that the shootings are once again raising interest in it,"
says Domann, a Nashvillian and clergy member of the United Methodist
Church's Kansas East Annual Conference. He is under appointment to a
non-salaried music ministry by the conference.

The song is the true story of Howard Ray, whom Domann knew as a boy growing
up in Oskaloosa, Kan., a town of about 700 people. The Ray family was
economically poor, and Howard and his siblings were shunned by the other
children. 

"Most everyone I knew put the whole Gray family down./They were the poorest
family in that little Kansas town," Domann sings.
 
One day in seventh grade, Domann went to comb his hair in the boys' room,
and he saw that a group of kids had Ray pinned against a hall locker. They
had his arm twisted behind his back and they were making fun of his clothes.
Domann, who had left Ray alone at other times, joined the crowd and laughed
harder than the rest of the kids. Afterward, he felt remorse.

"I wanted to apologize, but I was too afraid/Of what they'd think about me,
Howard Gray." 

Years later, in December 1980, Domann put the incident into a song. "It was
right after John Lennon was assassinated, and just so many people of my
generation were going back in our minds, reviewing the past," he says. That
exercise took him back to his school days and the memory of Howard Ray.
"That was an unanticipated place where I landed," the songwriter says.

"I know it may sound crazy, but now and then I dream/ About the eyes of
Howard Gray looking back at me." 

When the song began getting attention, Domann tried finding Ray. He stepped
up his efforts after a Southern gospel group called Wendy Bagwell and the
Sunliters recorded the song on Word Records in 1986. For the first time,
"Howard Gray" was getting regular radio play. Upon learning that Ray was
living in Topeka, Kan., Domann recorded a taped letter to him and included
the song. The songwriter told Ray about the healing effect the song has for
people. 

In a video produced later, Ray says he "cried a little bit" when he first
heard the song. He states that he is happy with how his experience and the
song are being used.

The two former classmates, now in their early 50s, have developed a
relationship and stay in touch. They made telephone contact in 1986, and Ray
surprised Domann by appearing at his father's funeral in 1989. A year and a
half later, they appeared together in the video, "Through the Eyes of Howard
Gray," from Blue Heron Press of Accord, N.Y.

"He's a very, very quiet man," Domann says. "Part of that has to do with
self-esteem issues." 

Ray quit school as a result of the ostracism he experienced and remains
illiterate. 

"The way I was treated and everything, I just didn't feel like going to
school," Ray says in the video. "I wanted to stay at home."

He has had a lot of health problems, including emphysema, and he is
unemployed, according to Domann. The songwriter says he tries to ensure that
Ray receives a portion of the royalties.

The song's biggest exposure has been through the Bishops, a bluegrass group
that included the song on an album and concert video. The album, "Kentucky
Bluegrass," won a Dove Award from the Gospel Music Association last year. 

Domann pitched "Howard Gray" on Nashville's Music Row, where a publisher
told him that the song was good but needed a happier ending. The ending has
not been changed: "May you and God forgive us, Howard Gray."

When Domann sings the song in worship settings or concerts, he often uses
Romans 8 as the backdrop. In that biblical passage, Paul writes that nothing
can separate us from the love of God in Christ, and that all things work for
those who are willing to let God be in control. God brings things out of
painful situations that human beings could never pull off, Domann said.
"'Howard Gray' is a God thing."

"It's so powerful," says the Rev. Elsie McKenney, pastor of Mount Carmel
United Methodist Church in Frederick, Md., and New Market (Md.) United
Methodist Church. "Everybody identifies themselves as a bully and a victim.
Everybody has that experience. They see themselves in both roles. It doesn't
matter what age they are."

McKenney bought a tape of the song several years ago, after hearing it
performed by Dust and Ashes, a group to which Domann once belonged. She
incorporated it into a March 11 sermon after the shootings in Santee.
Charles Andrew "Andy" Williams, the 15-year-old freshman charged with
killing two students and wounding several other people, lived in nearby
Brunswick, Md., before moving to California last year. The children of
McKenney's organist were friends of his, and they couldn't believe the news.
This wasn't the Andy they had known.

McKenney played "Howard Gray" at the end of her sermon. "People were just
deeply affected. It was very, very powerful," she said.

Domann has found that the song's appeal goes beyond age and culture. Though
it's a "white folk-song in terms of the style of music," it's been used
effectively in an all-black gathering in Brooklyn and at a Martin Luther
King birthday celebration in Raleigh, N.C., he says. 

In 1991, New England educator and musician David Levine produced the
"Through the Eyes of Howard Gray" video, which has been used in public
schools with a social skills curriculum called "The Road Best Traveled." The
video also has been used with a church study guide titled "God Knows, God
Forgives: The Story of Howard Gray," developed by Domann and his wife, Norma
Wimberly.

The song has generated letters from children and teachers through the years.
"Some of them are just incredible," Domann said. "Those are definitely
indications that children have been thinking and, at least at the time,
intend to change some of their behaviors." He also has received validations
of the song from teachers and principals. Teachers have told him that the
song has brought about changes in their classrooms.

"Dear Lee, thank you for teaching us that bullying is bad," an
elementary-school class wrote.

Ray also has received letters about the song. 

"It's really gratifying when I go into his place, when I see letters and
pictures that have been sent to him over the years," Domann says. "Those ...
and a picture of Jesus - that's about it for what's on their wall."

For more information about "Howard Gray," visit www.leedomann.com on the
Internet.
# # #
*Tanton is news editor for United Methodist News Service.

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United Methodist News Service
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