2008.04.27: April 27, 2008: Headlines: COS - Brazil: Local Groups: Awards: Military: Viet Nam: Muskogee Daily Phoenix: George Derrick’s commitment to helping others began years before he became Oklahoma’s first Peace Corps volunteer and went to Brazil in 1962
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2008.04.27: April 27, 2008: Headlines: COS - Brazil: Local Groups: Awards: Military: Viet Nam: Muskogee Daily Phoenix: George Derrick’s commitment to helping others began years before he became Oklahoma’s first Peace Corps volunteer and went to Brazil in 1962
George Derrick’s commitment to helping others began years before he became Oklahoma’s first Peace Corps volunteer and went to Brazil in 1962
“It was a town of 80,000 people, but no streets,” he said. “People were nice to you, but you always had to keep things to yourself. Crime was bad. Police would walk up to a teenage boy, take a bayonet and stick it in the ribs — kill him.” Still, he said, people treated him nicely. Derrick’s job in the Peace Corps was to help set up irrigation systems “so they can irrigate their rice fields.” He said he was struck by “how backwards these folks were.” “At night, I’d go into the school system and teach English and math,” he said. “There was a lot to do, lot to do. But you can see when you’re helping somebody, their attitude gets better.” The usual term for a Peace Corps volunteer was two years. But, Derrick had spent only one year in Brazil when another government entity sent him to Vietnam. “When I came back from Brazil, I had to go into the military. I wanted to go into the Navy,” he said. “When I got out of boot camp, they made me a seaman and assigned me to scraping paint off ships. I said I wanted to go into the medical field. They said I’d have to stay another year. I said I didn’t mind. Helping became part of my life in the Navy.” Derrick learned to be a dental technician and served as a medic in Vietnam and Guam for 19 months. “I saw casualties,” he said. “The dead ones they sent back, and the injured ones. I saw a lot of that.”
George Derrick’s commitment to helping others began years before he became Oklahoma’s first Peace Corps volunteer and went to Brazil in 1962
Well, I’m proud to be... ‘True’ or ‘transplanted,’ Okies celebrate Muskogee
Volunteering has been a lifelong trait of his
Caption: Floyd Younger, left, receives an ice cream bar from George Derrick at the Park Boulevard Care Center in Muskogee. Derrick brings snacks throughout the week and ice cream on the third Saturday of each month to share with residents. Photo: Mandy Lundy /
George Derrick’s commitment to helping others began years before he became Oklahoma’s first Peace Corps volunteer in 1962.
It continued for years after he finished his Peace Corps tour in 1963.
It continues today.
The Oklahoma Returned Peace Corps Volunteer's Association honored his lifetime of service with a plaque during National Peace Corps Week in February.
But Derrick, 68, doesn’t seek the honors.
“I believe what the Bible says — ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’” he said. “When I go help somebody, maybe the day will come when I need someone to help me. I don’t mind helping people, whether they’re young or old.”
This calling to help others has its roots in Muskogee County.
“I was raised in a community east of Oktaha, a little settlement called New Hope,” he said. “I had to ride the school bus from New Hope to Summit every morning. It came at 6:30. I had to get up at 4:30 every morning and milk cows because we sold cream. I’d ride home at five o’clock and milk cows again.”
The farm family knew the meaning of community.
“My dad and mom always helped when there was someone in the neighborhood in need,” Derrick recalled. “When we got old enough to help, they’d send us. If someone needed food, we’d take them food. If they needed wood cut, we’d go out and we’d cut wood. Whatever it was that we needed to do, we’d go help.
By the time he graduated from Langston with a degree in agricultural economics, Derrick learned about a new program that allowed him to combine his expertise and education with his desire to help others.
First foray to help the disadvantaged
John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961 as an independent government agency aimed to send volunteers to developing countries.
George Derrick volunteered one year later.
“It was May, 1962, two weeks before I graduated,” he said. “I went to the registrar’s office at Langston and a man from the Peace Corps was in the office, and when I found out that they paid $75 a month living expenses and put $75 in the bank, depending on where you served, I signed up. In June, I got a letter saying I had to be in Norman on June 16,” he said.
From there, he went to Muscle Shoals, Ala., to learn Portuguese and study life in rural areas. He then spent one year in Monte Claro, Brazil.
“It was a town of 80,000 people, but no streets,” he said. “People were nice to you, but you always had to keep things to yourself. Crime was bad. Police would walk up to a teenage boy, take a bayonet and stick it in the ribs — kill him.”
Still, he said, people treated him nicely.
Derrick’s job in the Peace Corps was to help set up irrigation systems “so they can irrigate their rice fields.”
He said he was struck by “how backwards these folks were.”
“At night, I’d go into the school system and teach English and math,” he said. “There was a lot to do, lot to do. But you can see when you’re helping somebody, their attitude gets better.”
The usual term for a Peace Corps volunteer was two years. But, Derrick had spent only one year in Brazil when another government entity sent him to Vietnam.
Learning to help globally, locally
“When I came back from Brazil, I had to go into the military. I wanted to go into the Navy,” he said. “When I got out of boot camp, they made me a seaman and assigned me to scraping paint off ships. I said I wanted to go into the medical field. They said I’d have to stay another year. I said I didn’t mind. Helping became part of my life in the Navy.”
Derrick learned to be a dental technician and served as a medic in Vietnam and Guam for 19 months.
“I saw casualties,” he said. “The dead ones they sent back, and the injured ones. I saw a lot of that.”
After serving three years and four months in the Navy, Derrick was offered a teaching and coaching job in North Dakota.
“I went out there on a Saturday on Sept. 8, and the snow was almost waist deep. I told the principal I didn’t want the job.
After working as a bank teller, he got a management job with Goodyear. The job sent him to stores in Muskogee, Tulsa, Oklahoma City and Tahlequah. He quit when they wanted to send him to Ohio.
“I wanted to stay in Muskogee,” he said.
After 11 years with Fort Howard Paper, he taught adult education for Muskogee Public Schools.
“I had a recurring stomach ulcer from Vietnam, and I couldn’t take it anymore,” he said.
Sharing his time with the elderly
No longer working for a living, Derrick now lives to help others.
“I basically try to keep going with my stomach ulcer. I’m seeing three civilian doctors and go to the VA hospital,” he said. “I could do little more than help people. I do what I can.”
He still does a lot.
Early in the morning, Derrick goes across town to help some aging friends get their trash bins to the curb. He said he makes sure he gets the carts to the curb by 7 a.m.
“These are elderly folk who can’t handle the cart,” he said. “I always get up at 6 every morning unless I’m sick with my bleeding ulcer, then I have to be careful.”
For residents at Park Boulevard Care Center in Muskogee, Derrick is the ice cream man and the candy man.
“My wife got a beauty shop, “he said. “We just decided to do some good with the nursing home, so we decided to take ice cream bars there once a month. We’ve been doing it for seven years now.”
He said Ragsdale Funeral Home now helps pay for the ice cream.
Derrick also takes candy bars to the nursing home.
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Headlines: April, 2008; Peace Corps Brazil; Directory of Brazil RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Brazil RPCVs; Local Groups; Awards; Military; Viet Nam; Oklahoma
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Story Source: Muskogee Daily Phoenix
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Brazil; Local Groups; Awards; Military; Viet Nam
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