Whiz Kids is music to minister’s ears
The Rev. Dwight Cunkle gets a lot of mileage out of his guitar these days.
Cunkle uses the instrument during his job as an elementary school music teacher and then, once a week, he can be found strumming a song during Whiz Kids sessions at a local church.
The Oklahoma City minister will be one of the longtime volunteers who will be honored at Whiz Kids’ annual Seeds of Hope Volunteer Appreciation and Charity Event set for 6 p.m. Monday at the Cox Convention Center.
Whiz Kids, a ministry of the nonprofit City Care, connects innercity churches and suburban churches to offer free tutoring and mentoring to children in first through sixth grades at Oklahoma City-area schools and in Tulsa.
The inner-city church typically provides a location for the one-on-one tutoring, and volunteers from both churches provide the lessons.
Monday’s event theme is “Honoring Our Special Heroes.” More than 1,300 volunteers and many community, church and school partners will be honored for their efforts to make a difference in the lives of more than 850 elementary students.
Besides Cunkle and other volunteer tutors, Whiz Kids also will honor City Care founder Larry Bross, who retires June 1. Bross and his wife, Masie, started Whiz Kids in 1995.
Cunkle said 21 years ago, he started the Whiz Kids program at New Covenant Church, where he is senior pastor. The church moved to another location 18 month ago but the leaders of Church of the Pentecost, allows the Whiz Kids sessions to continue there.
Cunkle said Church of the Pentecost, 3106 N Utah, is directly behind Kaiser Elementary School so the location has worked well for the students who participate in Whiz Kids.
Jennie Penner and Evalyn Brawley, who serve as the site’s cocoordinators, said the volunteers serving the 34 Kaiser students come from several metroarea churches including Covenant Life Church, Chapel Hill United Methodist, Crossings Community Church, Life Church Northwest Oklahoma City, Our Lord’s Lutheran Church, United Methodist Church of the Servant, The Christ Experience and St. Mark’s United Methodist Church.
Cunkle said he typically helps with the Bible Club portion of the Whiz Kids’ sessions. On a recent afternoon, he played guitar as he and the students sang songs with biblical messages.
Once the singing was over, Cunkle joined his Whiz Kids student Joseph to work on a reading handout.
He said he has been committed to the Whiz Kids program for many years because education always has been important in his family. He is a music teacher at Horace Mann Elementary, his parents were teachers and his son is a teacher.
Cunkle said through Whiz Kids, students become more proficient readers, but they also learn more about God’s Word and are connected to Christians who care about them and the community-at-large.
“If the kids can’t read, not only are they probably not going to succeed in school but they won’t be able to read God’s Word. How will they learn about God’s Word if they can’t read and if there aren’t examples of Christ’s love for them?” he said.
“With Whiz Kids, they are reading the lives of the tutors at the same time the tutors are helping them learn to read. All of that works together to increase Bible literacy for them.”
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The pickup left the rolling, troopers said. road, rolled over and the Bean, who was not wearing driver was thrown from a seat belt, was flown to the vehicle, troopers said. a hospital in Shreveport,
The driver, who was Louisiana, where she later not wearing a seat belt, died, the patrol reported.