Brenda.Combs was a homeless crack addict. How did she …Combs, 45, likes to show teenage students her "before" photos, which portray a gaunt, disheveled derelict with zombie eyes.

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Brenda.Combs was a homelesscrack addict. How did she wind upa respected schoolteacher?

BY I(ENNETH MILLER

UST NORTH of the airport in Phoenix, in one of America's mostviolent neighborhoods, the crackle of gunfire often ricochets be-tween shabby stucco houses. Jacked-up cars blaring hip-hop cruisepast the dirt yards, and the clatter of police helicopters echoesthrough the desert air. But if you listen closely, you can hear a cho-

rus of small voices wafting from a classroom in a white brick school building.Brenda Combs is leading her students in song. "When we wake up in themorning," she belts out in a soulful contralto, "we can brush our teeth ... combour hair ... eat some food ... and get ready for a brand-new day." rJ

The kids in this summer class range in age from 5 to 12 and, like mostpupils at StarShine Academy-a charter school serving kindergarten through12th grade-come from Phoenix's poorest falnilies. Some of their parents aredrug addicts; others are homeless. The woman by the chalkboard, for her part,has achieved a kind of success that once would have seemed well beyondher grasp. Combs, who runs the summer program and teaches third andPHOTOGRAPHED BY TOM SPITZ 115

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fourth grades the rest of the year, wasrecently listed in Who's Who AmongAmerica's Teachers.When she receivedher master's in education from GrandCanyon University last spring, FirstLady Laura Bush sent congratulations.As Combs was being interviewed onCNN, the university's CEO showed up

·with a surprise graduation prese-nt:a full scholarship toward a PhD.

"Brenda is incredibly gifted," saysStarShine Academy's founder, Patri-cia McCarty. "I often think of howmany people used to walk by her andsay, 'She's a throwaway.'''

What makes Combs such an extra-ordinary educator of at-risk children-the kind whose students drop by laterto thank her:-may be the years shespent living on the streets as a des-perate crack addict She slept underbridges and rummaged throughdumpsters for breakfast And she sel-dom used a comb ora toothbrush.

Combs, 45, likes to show teenagestudents her "before" photos, whichportray a gaunt, disheveled derelictwith zombie eyes. "I know what it'slike to want to get high," she siys, "tobe hungry and abused. They trust mebecause I've been there."

WHENCOMBSWASAGIRLin Flagstaff,135miles to the north, few would haveexpected her to follow such a tortur-ous path. Her father was a baker byday and a janitor by night; her mother,a part-time restaurant cook Both be-lieved in education and hard workBrenda, the eldest of three, had an earfor music; when she taught herself to116

play "What a Friend We Have inJesus" on the piano as a kindergart-ner, her mother wept with pride. Forher family, church came before all else.

"My parents were very religious,"she recalls, "and they had a firm gripon their kids." Drinking, smoking andcursing were prohibited; so were dat-ing and slang. Brenda felt like a mis-fit among her more worldly peers,especially after the family moved fromthe inner city to a mostly white sub-urb. By the time she got to college, shewas determined to live by her ownrules. She lasted a year at NorthernArizona University, then quit andfound work as a bank teller.

SHEALSOSTARTEDpartying. Firstcame margaritas and daiquiris,then pot and acid. A boyfriendintroduced her to cocaine.

Combs now believes she has an ad-dictive personality. At the time, sheknew only that getting high banishedher insecurities and inhibitions. Shebegan drifting from job to job, commit-ting petty crimes. Arrested for forgeryand shoplifting, she got off with proba-tion. But Combs's real undoing provedto be crack-smokable cocaine-whichhit Flagstaff in the mid-1980s. Suddenlynothing else mattered. Home became acheap motel or an acquaintance's sofa.

When Comb~ failed a drug test, vi-olating probation, an attorney helpedher avoid prison. She went throughrehab, and the two wound up falling inlove. Combs took a job as a hairdresserand began pursuing her dream of be-coming a singer, playing nightclubs

on weekends. But her relapses doomedthe relationship, and she plummetedback into addiction.

In 1992 she drifted to Phoenix. Onenight, she was walking past a housewhere a raucous card game was inprogress. A car screeched to a halt "Iremember hearing a clicking sound,"Combs says. "Then I saw guns comeout of the window." The target was aman she'd just asked for a cigarette.He threw himself on top of her, butboth were wounded in the fusillade.

Combs's left ankle was so thor-oughly shattered that surgeons con-sidered amputation. After months inhospitals, she returned to the streets,still on crutches.

"For me," she says, "cocaine was thebest medication."

AT STARSHINE ACADEMY, one ofBrenda Combs's favorite motivational

tools is a snow cone machine. Shebought it a few years ago for her son,Mycole, now seven, but decided toshare its bounty. Every Friday after-noon, she makes cones for each ofthe school's 130 students. "They workhard all week," she says. "They needa little reward."

Combs labors tirelessly to help kidsbeat the odds. "Miss Brenda made mesee that wherever you come from, youcan do something great," says RickyGomez, 14,who recently wona schol-arship for gifted students to a Catholichigh schooL Combs, he says, steeredhim away from drugs and toward hisdream of becoming im architect

She makes regular home visits, evenwhen the domicile is a dilapidatedtrailer. When a parent is in jail, Combshas been known to put up an extrachild or two in her own small house."She doesn't expect any credit for it,"

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says Beth Brantley, who gave Combsher first teaching job seven years ago.

Because the school operates on aslim budget, Combs scours yard sales,spending part of her $35,000 salaryon art supplies, educational gamesand AV equipment. She spends herevenings devising lesson plans-amath game involving pizza slices, anEnglish unit in which students pub-lish their- own books, To make endsmeet as a single mother, she holdsdown part-time jobs: choir director,online college instructor. And on Sun-days, after church, she brings food,water and a bit of hope to those wholive on the streets. "I want to go backand let them know, Hey, I made it,"she says. "If I can do it, you can too:"

IT WASN'T THE BULLETS that got Combsto change her ways. Over the years,

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she was beaten, stabbed, burned withcigarettes' and raped. She survivedmultiple overdoses and a pipeful ofcrack laced with rat poison, Then, onemorning in 1995,she awoke beneatha highway overpass to find that hershoes had been stolen.

The ground that day was hotenough to raise blisters. Combs wasliterally stuck But the thief had stolenmore than her shoes-he took the lastscrap of her dignity, "It all just hit me,"she recalls, "I thought, This cannot bethe life that God intended for me."

After a friend rustled up a pair ofsneakers, Combs walked to the policestation and turned herself in. Her pro-bation officer handed her a catalog ofrehab programs and ordered her tofind one she could stick with, Combschose a halfway house and set abouthealing herself. The year she spentthere, she says, was the hardest shehad ever known, The slightest emo-tional upset, the flare of a cigarettelighter, even certain songs on the

radio, would set off ferocious crav-ings, Most of the other residents even-tually relapsed. But for Combs, thistime, there was no turning back

After getting clean, Combs sur-rounded herself with supportive men-

r- tors but didn't always heed theircounseL Her most serious misstep wasmarrying an addict who was trying tostay sober, with far less success. WhileCombs worked to pay the rent, Josewould disappear on binges; he some-times beat her when he returned.The abuse continued even after shediscovered she was pregnant. She was37 and hadn't used illegal drugs for fiveyears, No one could explain why, hoursafter Mycole's birth in January 2000,the infant suffered a near-fatal stroke.He was left with brain damage, anddoctors warned that he might neverlearn to walk, talk or feed himself.

COMBSFILEDFORDIVORCEwhen herson was three months old, after Jose,in a rage, trashed their house and tooka swipe at Mycole, At the time, shewas working days at a collectionagency and nights at a restaurant.That fall, her day boss told her to de-cide between keeping her job or rush-ing to the hospital every time her sonhad a seizure. Combs quit on the spot

Beth Brantley, who ran the day carecenter where Mycole spent much ofhis time, saw an opportunity. Havingjust started a charter school for olderkids, she made an offer: If Combswould come work for her, Mycolecould stay for free.

"I'd never thought about teaching

CLASS ACT

before," Combs says. But after a week,she knew she'd found her calling, Toenhance her skills and credentials, shebegan taking education courses at acommunity college. By 2005 she hadearned her bachelor's degree at theonline University of Phoenix and en-rolled in the master's program atGrand Canyon University. After Brant-ley closed her school, Combs ilPpliedfor a position at StarShine,

During the job interview, PatriciaMcCarty asked her why she wanted towork in a hardscrabble neighborhoodwhen she could earn far more in acomfortable suburb. "She said, 'Thesekids are me,''' McCarty recalls. "'Andwe're here to change the world.'''

TODAYCOMBSand her son livein a two-bedroom bungalowshe helped build with a smallarmy of Habitat for Humanity

volunteers. She has reconciled withher parents, who love to take Mycoleon fishing trips, He is in second gradenow, and after years of intensivether-apy, he's an avid basketball player, aneager student and a voracious reader.

Combs's own horizons continlle toexpand. McCarty is grooming her tobecome principal of a new StarShineschooL Organizations are asking her togive speeches. Publishers want her towrite an autobiography, and produc-ers want to turn it into a movie.

All the attention is a little dizzying,but she has weathered tougher chal-lenges, "Many doors are opening tome," she marvels. Then she laughs. "Iguess I'm ready." _

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