Dakota Givens manned up as best he could for six years — from the day when well-meaning friends at his father’s funeral told the 5-year-old he was now the man of the family — until he was invited to a free summer camp for boys who had lost their soldier dads in war.
“It gave him the opportunity to be a boy again, instead of carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders,” said Melissa Givens, Dakota’s mom. She gave birth to a second son, Carson, a month after her husband, Army Pfc. Jesse Givens, 34, drowned when his tank tumbled into the Euphrates River on May 1, 2003.
At One Good Turn Ranch in Divide last summer, Dakota and the other boys learned to overcome fears in daily challenges that included climbing Pikes Peak and riding in NASCAR-type cars. They also found community in their shared experiences.
“It was just nice to be around people who have gone through the same thing,” said Dakota, now a sixth-grader at Webster Elementary School in Colorado Springs. “The camp helped me learn that I am not alone, that if I need to talk to anyone, they have gone through the same experience.”
Another camp is planned for this summer, this time for girls who’ve lost their fathers to war.
The camps are run by Knights of Heroes Foundation in Colorado Springs. And ranch owner Joey Truscelli and reality- TV producer Conrad Ricketts hope that the inspirational stories they’ve heard from the kids can be used to change the tone of reality TV.
“We’re trying to create TV programming that is socially responsible — television you can sit down with your children on prime time without a mute button in your hand,” said Ricketts, executive producer of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
Started with a race car
Bill Goldberg , the professional wrestler and actor who served as a mentor to the boys at camp, is currently appearing on NBC’s “Celebrity Apprentice 3” to help raise awareness — and money — for Truscelli’s nonprofit, One Good Turn Ranch 4Kids, which helps organize events and activities for kids who’ve faced adversity.
Truscelli, a former Marine and Indy-car driver, might seem an unlikely partner in this reality-TV venture. But failure created opportunity.
In 2001, he quit his job as chief executive of Electronic Data Submissions Systems, the medical-data company he had founded, to focus on his dream of being part of the Indianapolis 500.
A few years earlier, he had bought a race car and started Truscelli Team Racing, which competed at the Indy 500.
But after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, his sponsorships dried up and the dream ended.
One day, hanging out at the Indy 500 with nothing else to do, someone asked him to give a tour to visiting VIPs — the staff of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”
Later, when the crew filmed the makeover of the home of Billy Jack and Anne Barrett, who were raising children considered “unadoptable,” they invited him to the job site in Peyton, east of Colorado Springs.
“I saw them making a difference, and it touched my heart, and my family’s heart,” Truscelli said. “I said, ‘What can we do?’ I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.”
He floated the idea of working on a reality show together. Ricketts had a pat answer for the plan: “Hundreds of people come up to me every year with an idea for a show. I said to him, ‘Go out there and shoot one.’ “
Truscelli did, but when he called Ricketts to tell him, he had to jog his memory. “I think he’d forgotten who I was.”
Ultimately, Ricketts found Truscelli’s work so compelling that they decided to work together on a series called “One Good Turn with Joey T.”
For one show, Truscelli built a racetrack called the “Little Brickyard” so that disabled children could race their wheelchairs, just like their NASCAR heroes.
“We’ve got about a dozen things we’d love to be able to do at the ranch, and other places around the world, that would bring people together who have enormous things in common but don’t know each other,” said Ricketts.
But shopping the series has been tough — especially the two-hour “Sons of the Fallen,” which focuses on the boys who attended camp with Dakota, said Ricketts.
“Not about humiliation”
“The push-back has been, ‘I could care less about the boys. Why aren’t Joey and his wife arguing with each other?’ ” Ricketts said. “But I’m not going after the 18- to 34-year-old male. We want to have a conversation with the nation that’s not about humiliation.”
Dakota’s mother believes that a show like “Sons of the Fallen” would encourage others.
“Once people see that whole pay-it-forward thing, they’re more apt to say, ‘I want to do something like that,’ ” she said.
Dakota would love for the show to become reality, but in the meantime, he treasures his friendship with Truscelli, who gave him an open invitation to visit the ranch.
“I just go hang out with Joey,” he said. “We’re like brothers. We watch TV, play games or go fishing. We get in his golf cart, go up to the racetrack, and we floor it.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
