Building Safer Communities Through Prevention with Murray Woodard, Director of COMBAT

So for listeners who may not know you, Mr. Murray, what experiences helped shape you? We kind of talked a little bit off camera, helped shaped you into the leader you are today.

You know, this is always one of the toughest questions because I go back like 40 years, right? Yeah, take us all the way.

So there's no question I have to start with, obviously, my parents.

Okay.

Who co-parented.

My mother and father weren't together.

Right.

I was raised by a single mother, but my father was also there.

Both of them were leaders in their own right.

My mother not only raised me, but cousins as well.

So watch a young woman who was 21 at the time grow up with us and manage a bunch of rambunctious boys and then teenagers and then ultimately in the young man watching and learning from her leadership.

My father was a coach.

and continues to coach today.

So coaching and leadership, you watch him mentor a bunch of young folk on the field.

And I was blessed to play sports my entire life.

So growing up, watching coaches instruct us, I learned from people on the streets.

every day.

And then, Kansas City's sort of an embarrassment of riches.

I got to sit at the feet and learn from some of what I consider titans in our community.

People like Gwen Grant, CEO of the Urban League, I got to work closely with and now serve on her board.

Clinton Adams got a chance to sit at Freedom and watch our old guard continue to teach and lead our community.

And so, I've been blessed.

Faith leaders have been in and out my life.

Watching them.

Pastor Terrence, who's not my pastor, he married me and my wife.