Stephen Webb, 18, received the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence's Youth of the Year award for the second time Thursday night. He spoke at the 35th annual award ceremony at Abe & Jake's Landing about the importance of the club.

After shaking several people’s hands below the stage at Abe & Jake’s Landing on Thursday night, Stephen Webb talked about how he was forced to join the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence.

“My mom worked in the mornings,” Webb said. “She needed a place for me to go.”

Now five years older and wiser and the two-time winner of the Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence Youth of the Year award, he’s glad his mom made him join.

“I’m blessed my mom forced me to go because it’s something so positive,” he said. “There’s so many kids involved in the wrong stuff; what they need is positive stuff.”

In part because of his work in getting other youngsters in Lawrence involved in positive activities in the club, Webb won Youth of the Year over two other candidates at the club’s ceremony.

“When I go into the Boys & Girls Club, I feel like a kid again,” said Webb, 18, a Free State High School senior. “I feel the joy of everyone when I come into the club.”

Ed Brunt, head judge for the Youth of the Year award, said Webb won for several qualities he showed through interviews, writing samples and letters of recommendation.

One of them was his community service, particularly shoveling snow off the driveways of folks who couldn’t do it themselves.

“If they couldn’t pay him, he did it anyway,” Brunt said.

Now Webb moves on to a March 30 statewide competition among all Boys & Girls Clubs.

Kansas University football coach Mark Mangino was the keynote speaker at the ceremony, bestowing his six points of success in life to the younger children among the approximately 300 in attendance.

The last of those points that Mangino implored the children to do was be true to themselves.

“Be yourself,” Mangino said. “If you know something is wrong and you shouldn’t do, don’t do it.”

The Boys & Girls Club also recognized its nine founding board members for the Lawrence club, now in its 35th year. They were Bill Bradley, Lawrence Mayer, Julie Hack, Marshall Crowther, Bob Wells, Cliff Lafrenz and Kurt Von Achen, Charlie Bratton and Bob Stephens.