LOCALS
lifting SPIRITS An exuberant survivor builds a new life at the YMCA by BILLY WARDEN photography by JUSTIN KASE CONDER
T
ony Jenkins’ charmed life fell apart on a lonely road in Alabama, scattered among the wreckage of a navy blue Mustang. He came to Raleigh to put the pieces back together. Today, says architect Frank Harmon, “there may be no more exuberant person in the entire city.” That gusto is on display at the Alexander YMCA on Hillsborough Street, where Jenkins, 46, works as a clean-up attendant. When he isn’t meticulously wiping down workout equipment, he's
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offering piercing whoops of encouragement and raucous push-up contests. It’s not the life that the former star architecture student and international weightlifting champion once imagined. But, following a traumatic brain injury, it’s a fate he has embraced, emerging as a different kind of star. “In life, we all deal with things that don’t turn out well,” says Harmon of his one-time colleague. “We can either be victims or be survivors. Tony has chosen to be a survivor.” The details of Jenkins’ fall and unlikely
comeback are a mystery to many who know him. Y-goers pick up shards of the story from Jenkins himself, delivered in rapid-fire bursts as he pinballs between clean-up duties. “Don’t drink and drive,” he declares. “I could’ve died… Other people could’ve died… But I’m here now… Best YMCA in the world!” And then he’s gone, leaving onlookers swimming in questions. But on a recent Friday afternoon, Jenkins—his work week done—retreated to a conference room and eased into his story. Later, his father, Buck Jenkins, a
