Dick Dawson … No person ever gives more than when they give uplifting support and mentoring to a child

Dick Dawson … No person ever gives more than when they give uplifting support and mentoring to a child.

By now I have come to believe that most of us by the time we become adults, which I would loosely define as someone who has attained enough age to have developed the insight to look to the past for inspiration for the future, have recalled someone who came along just at the right time in their life to inspire them by making a memorable positive difference in their life. A person who ended up speaking to their soul. Who was able to show by example or lesson that living one’s life in a principled, structured and honest way will ultimately result in you finding success in your life. Success in this context means that you became the owner of your life. That your successes and failures were yours to own and that you lived your life with meaning and purpose and treated others in a respectful and accountable way which regardless of the outcome made you a winner.

In Boundary County that person was a boxing coach — a giant of a man both in stature and personality. His name is Dick Dawson. Dick came onto the boxing scene during the waning years of the now legendary boxing coach, the late Tommy Lefebvre. Dick assisted Tommy up until Tommy moved to Spokane, Wash., to take over a boxing program there. Dick then became the head coach and for some 30 years Dick became a de facto father figure and family member for countless Boundary County young men, as well as an extended member of their families. This last summer a group of former young people who he had mentored, now having attained the age of adulthood, came together to stage an event whose purpose was to let Coach Dawson know just how much he had been a positive influence in each of their lives.

The group collectively had reflected that Dick’s special talent for coaching boxing was much bigger than teaching proper footwork or left or right jabbing techniques. He taught them to own their own mistakes and successes, to show up for practice on time and to put forth consistently your best effort. In providing these important lessons, Dick provided invaluable lifetime skills that easily translated to the greater world into which they all graduated.

Dick’s special skill was to learn each boy’s personal needs as well as their family’s and to approach each of them in such a manner that each of them believed that he spoke only to them. They, as a result of this special skill, each went away believing they were the most important person in the world. Dick tailored his lessons for each of them to individually meet them where they were at the time. In doing so, over his coaching career his winning percentage was an unbelievable 90 percent.

Now years later Harry Hauck, Jill Neumeyer, Heather Fodge and Michelle Gross and their team of local volunteers put on a reunion to honor Coach Dawson at the Boundary County Fairgrounds last September 2021. The group presented Coach Dawson with a mayoral proclamation signed by Bonners Ferry Mayor James R. Staples which read: “To Richard ‘Dick’ Dawson, for his lifelong contributions to our Community as a Coach, a mentor and a father figure. Thank you for all you have done.”

In addition to the mayoral proclamation they presented Coach Dawson with a granite monument made by Idaho Granite Works with the inscription which reads, “In Honor of Richard “Dick” Dawson for his lifelong contributions to our community as a boxing coach for 29 years, mentor and father figure.”

And finally and perhaps one of the most personal and poignant of the presentations being made that day, they provided the coach with a large banner reading “Dick Dawson Bonners Ferry Boxing Club, 29 years coaching impacted 1000s of young lives.” The banner was personally signed by each boxer.

The granite monument is currently on display at Iron Mike’s Gym.