Lola Barkley, left and Sophia Perrin bookend author Stanley Tucker as they attempt to meet his challenge of rolling balls across the Dana Street Elementary Gym and through holes set up across the floor.
                                 Mark Guydish | Times Leader

Lola Barkley, left and Sophia Perrin bookend author Stanley Tucker as they attempt to meet his challenge of rolling balls across the Dana Street Elementary Gym and through holes set up across the floor.

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

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<p>Author and literacy advocate Stanley Tucker encourages students at Dana Street Elementary school to be kind and do their best during a visit Monday</p>
                                 <p>Mark Guydish | Times Leader</p>

Author and literacy advocate Stanley Tucker encourages students at Dana Street Elementary school to be kind and do their best during a visit Monday

Mark Guydish | Times Leader

FORTY FORT — The suspense probably proved more intense for anyone who hasn’t seen the clip of Stanley Tucker on the Ellen DeGeneres show. Ellen called the children’s book author and literacy advocate out of the audience and gave him two chances to roll a ball across the stage through a small hole. The prize: $25,000. Did Tucker make it? Did he get the money?

Did he duplicate the giveaway on a smaller scale during a Monday visit to Dana Street? And did the students he pulled from the crowd in the gym get their money?

If you can’t wait, you can see the Ellen clip at stanleytucker.com. Or you can read on to see how “the man” spent they day working to inspire students not only to read, but to write their own stories, literally on paper or just by being a caring, person others will be proud of.

Tucker is big on “modeling” because, as he recounted, he learned from his mom. “Hardworking and faithful,” she not only told him how to live in words, “she showed me how to do it.”

The reward: “When you do good things, good things happen to you,” he told a crowd of about 300 students in grade three through five during one of two morning assemblies. And if bad things happen, have faith things will still work out.

He demonstrated what he meant by reading his book, “Stan and the Man,” in which young Stan learns to hit a baseball from the Man, “My hero! Instead of going to college, he joined the United States Army. He went to serve and protect our country.”

The man told Stan to keep his eye on the ball. And though he lost his mentor, he remembered his words. “The man’s love for the game of baseball stayed in my heart. One game while up to bat facing the toughest team in town, I heard the man’s voice clearly.” Stan swung, hit his first home run, and “realized the man was still with me.”

“That’s a true story,” Tucker told the students. His father had died at age 39. “Dad was in an accident. He didn’t make it. I was angry. Why did this bad thing happen to me? I got good grades. I did good things.” Writing the book did more than express what his father had meant, it memorialized him. “As long as a book is on a shelf, Dad lives forever.”

Tucker urged the students to appreciate the important people in their lives, and to show kindness in “three simple ways.

“Treat everyone with kindness and respect,” he said. Be a “first-time listener,” meaning when someone tells you do do something, you do it the first time your told.

“Give your best effort.” Don’t be a “lazy lizard” in school by doing the minimum work.

“Do the right thing.” Tucker told the youngsters that “Everyday you write your story” and urged them to “make yourself proud by making others proud of you.”

Oh, and about that ball. Tucker missed the target by very wide margins both times on Ellen. But she gave him the money anyway. So when he invited Lola Barkley and Sophia Perrin to take a similar challenge — with two much larger holes as targets and a much shorter distance to roll two balls each, the truth is that they didn’t need to actually make it — though they both got much closer than he had done on the show.

He gave them each $10 anyway.

Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish