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A college drop-out abandons a lucrative tech career for a life of inner-city poverty – and hopes to save an urban school district from oblivion

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"Lenexa was a wake-up call," West says. "Somewhere in the back of my mind, I thought if I could be successful in the dot-com industry, if I made enough money, then I would be accepted there as who I was: a bright guy with a successful company making lots of money. Turns out, that was not the case. I was still just some black kid."

He bought the house in Ivanhoe and slowly became involved in the neighborhood association. By 2004, he was leading the creation of a detailed, resident-driven neighborhood plan. He didn't know anything about city zoning, and he knew even less about his neighbors.

At one point, West and the other organizers drafted a 60-page report based on input from several group meetings. West argued that sending the bulky document to all the residents would be a waste of paper. No one would read it, he argued.

At the next meeting, dozens of his neighbors showed up, their reports worn from reading and covered in notes.

"It was really a series of moments like that that took over," he says. "Now, instead of being a full-time technology entrepreneur, making scads of money and being very self-important, I'm a part-time, gainfully unemployed computer hacker between the hours of 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. and spend most of all day every day working on community projects that don't pay a dime."

On evenings and weekends, kids are checking their e-mail or doing their homework at West's house. Over the past few years, he and Turner have let young men stay at their house for varying lengths of time. Some have been kicked out of their homes. Others just need a place to cool off after confrontations with other neighborhood kids.

West calls the rotating group his "gentlemen." When Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama was at Municipal Auditorium last month, West and his gentlemen were there. Sometimes he takes them to the symphony.

Recently, though, his routine changed.

West's 14-year-old cousin, Damon, had sometimes stayed with him. Family members saw that, under West's care, Damon was making progress. So this past summer, West became Damon's legal guardian.

The air-conditioning and cell-phone bills spiked. But that wasn't what worried West.

"Ghosts of my own childhood return to taunt," he wrote on his blog in August.

Damon attends Fairview Alternative School on Pittman Road near East 38th Terrace, a boot-camplike place with as many cops as administrators.

West had served on the boards of Gordon Parks Elementary School (an inner-city charter school) and the Stephanie Waterman Foundation (a program that pairs tennis lessons with tutoring). But over the past year, he has navigated the public school system as the guardian of a struggling student.

In September, West got a call from the Walgreens on Linwood and Prospect. The man on the other end of the line told him that Damon had been caught shoplifting. Fuming, West met the 14-year-old at the store, bought some poster board, and ordered him to make a sign with the words "I like to shoplift." Then West marched him outside and made him stand on the sidewalk, holding up the sign.

After a few minutes of watching from a nearby bus stop, West broke out the markers and made his own sign. Standing next to Damon on the corner, he held up a sheet that said: "I love him and I will never give up."

It sparked a three-hour community dialogue, West says. Leaning out of car windows, some people berated the young shoplifter. Others scolded West for his unusual approach to discipline.

West keeps his sign on top of his washing machine, where he sees it every day.

West went to Damon's school and sat in the back of his classroom. On any given day, half the students were out on suspensions, he says. Those who did attend got next to no instruction from teachers who aimed only to keep them out of trouble during daytime hours.

Damon was rarely assigned homework, so West made up his own lessons. "He has homework every school night, period," he says. He became the parent chairman of Fairview's School Advisory Committee and started going to district meetings.

"I told the district, I told the school board: This school is not working," he says.

West understands that the kids lingering on his block are the products of a failed education system. But, as with the Viable Third, there are examples of success within the struggling school district that could serve as inspiration. 

It's 7 a.m. on a frigid Tuesday, and the still-dark parking lot at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church is empty. Except for West.

At 7:30, he's chatting inside with Jim Eller, the All Souls minister and public education advocate. Slouched casually a the chair, West explains his vision for a district unified with community leaders, where every high school prepares students for college, and racial politics take a backseat to educational achievement. Eller is won over.

At 8:15, West shoots across town to pick up Turner, who is serving as his campaign manager. They head to a meeting at the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council. West sits on the advisory board that decides how to spend the tax-increment-finance money that Ivanhoe shares with two adjoining neighborhoods. He loves the role but says he's open to someone else stepping in. West argues for dispersing leadership as widely as possible, but the group urges him to stay in charge of the $500,000 pot.

Next stop is Fairview, where he goes every Tuesday. After police officers get the students seated facing the same direction in a drab, concrete cafeteria, West sits with them during lunch. He doesn't preach at them. He just asks questions: Have the choices you made gotten you what you want? If they haven't, he suggests, then maybe it's time to try something new.

It's a discussion, not a counseling session. It seems to resonate because it's pragmatic, echoing the way West lives his life.

"Not screwing people over works," he says. "Being a man of your word works. Taking care of people for no apparent reason works."

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