Jake Butler and Brett Fuller didn’t know if their match would burn out quickly.

After all, many Big Brothers Big Sisters matches end after a year or two. Some make it to five years.

They had no idea their relationship would last 12 years.

When they met in 1991, Butler was a shy, restless 6-year-old. Fuller was a 24-year-old employee of the Kansas University Alumni Association. They were the first match made by Big Brothers Big Sisters in Douglas County.

Now 18 years old, Butler is graduating from Lawrence High School. He still hangs out with Fuller, 36, and credits him with providing a male role model that helped him make it through school and plan for college.

“I’m really thankful,” Butler said. “I didn’t know at the time that I needed it. But looking back, I see how important it was.”

At the time of the match, Butler’s mother, Maria Butler, knew her son needed a male influence. Jake Butler hadn’t seen his father since age 2. When Jake’s kindergarten buddy basketball season came to an end, she noticed a change in the 5-year-old.

“He was very attached to Freeman West, the former KU basketball player that helped coach the team,” Maria Butler recalled. “He was really sad at the end he wouldn’t be able to see Freeman again.”

1991 meeting

So she signed Jake up for Big Brothers Big Sisters, which had a board of directors but hadn’t yet matched any children to mentors.

On Dec. 11, 1991, Jake Butler met Fuller for the first time at the Big Brothers Big Sisters office, then on Massachusetts Street. According to a story in the Journal-World, Jake — then a first-grader at Schwegler School — managed to give this assessment of Fuller: “He’s nice.”

Brett Fuller, left, and Lawrence High senior Jake Butler were the first match for Douglas County Big Brothers Big Sisters.

After the meeting, the pair went out for ice cream.

Fuller, then director of constituent services for the Alumni Association, said he was eager to get involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters.

“I grew up in Lawrence, and I went to KU,” he said. “I saw a lot of changes in Lawrence, and they were mostly bad. I had a friend on the Lawrence Police Department, and he was on a gang unit or a drug unit. I thought that was pathetic. When I was 6 years old, children ran rampant in the streets, and their parents didn’t have to worry about what time they got home.”

Butler said the original meeting made less of an impression on him.

“I don’t even remember what my mom told me when she said I was getting a big brother,” he said. “I didn’t know how significant it would be.”

Mentor and friend

Over time, Fuller truly became a big brother to Butler. Fuller never withdrew from the program, even when he moved to Lenexa in 1994 for a job with Sprint, or when he got married in 2000. The pair become a poster match for the local Big Brother Big Sisters organization.

“This is completely what we want when we make a match,” said Erika Zimmerman, program director. “For any agency, we’d find it rare for a match to last 12 years. We’re really excited about it.”

In the early years, the brothers enjoyed going to Clinton Lake to cruise on Fuller’s speedboat. Eventually, the activities shifted to sports. The two go to KU and Kansas City Chiefs games, and they are involved in a fantasy football league.

“We can just hang out now that I can actually sit down,” Butler said. “I couldn’t do that for more than a minute back then.”

Added Fuller: “We can sit and watch six hours of NFL football and never get off the couch.”

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One of their highlights was when Fuller took Butler to Chicago for his birthday — it was his 11th or 12th; they can’t remember. It was Butler’s first time on an airplane and his first time outside the Kansas City area.

Friendship continues

Butler is hardly a “little” brother anymore. He’s played offensive and defensive tackle for the LHS football team and last fall was listed at 5 feet 11 inches and 235 pounds. He also throws shot put and discus for the track team.

Butler will graduate today from Lawrence High School. He plans to attend KU in the fall.

Although their Big Brothers Big Sisters relationship officially ended when Butler turned 18 last month, the two have no plans to cut off their friendship.

“I’m glad he’s not going off to school,” Fuller said. “It’ll be less like a parent situation and more like a big-brother situation. I don’t see us changing that much.”

Maria Butler, who works at the Lawrence Public Library, said she didn’t know what Jake would be like if he hadn’t had Fuller as a mentor. But she said the match has been one of the main forces shaping her son’s transition from childhood to manhood.

“I never dreamed at the time it would last this long,” she said. “It’s been wonderful. We’ve had no complaints, never had any problems. Brett’s like a member of the family, and Jake’s like a member of Brett’s family.”