High-Stepper Aids Troubled Youth

When she was 4 years old, doctors suggested to Barbara Clippinger’s parents that she take dance classes five days a week to strengthen her weak ankles.

It not only made them firm, it helped her become a dynamic dancer who was later hired as one of the renowned June Taylor Dancers on the Jackie Gleason variety television show.

She also was one of the Latin Quarter Lovelies in New York City and also danced in several Broadway musicals.

It was a glamorous life, but after a couple of unsuccessful marriages, a maturity that took her out of the chorus line, Clippinger enrolled in college.

She taught tap-dancing lessons to help pay the tuition, and when the Gleason series was re-run on television, she received a one-time payment of $15,000, as did others who appeared on the show.

“It was a godsend,” said the Newport Beach woman who once worked as an assistant choreographer at the Las Vegas Dunes and Riviera hotels.

She earned a bachelor’s degree and then a master’s in counseling and psychology from Cal State Fullerton.

But now, unlike her glamorous past, Clippinger, 55, is ensconced in a garage office where she directs the operation of the Odyssey Runaway Shelter and the Emancipation Training Center in Anaheim for troubled teen-agers.

“I’ve always had the feeling I wanted to help people,” said the mother of two sons. “I was always the one to listen to the other dancers and their problems. I was very comfortable listening to people.”

But when she was 30 years old and started listening to people who were 18, “I realized I needed to do something to understand them. I didn’t know anything, but I was a good listener.”

So after graduating from college with the bachelor’s degree, she started a new career.

“I thought I would really like to help families,” she said, and while studying for her master’s, Clippinger was asked to design a job for a battered women’s shelter in North Orange County.

She was eventually hired for the job and worked there seven years before becoming director of the runaways shelters, one of which is in a financial bind.

She said the training center, financed by Orange County to give runaways up to six months of help with food, housing and counseling, has until Tuesday to come up with $70,000 or close.

She said the fund loss is the result of the county’s budget crunch.

“We see a light, but not much of one,” Clippinger said. The other unit is fully funded.

Through hard work as a dancer and choreographer, Clippinger has learned to survive.

“I sometimes see them (runaways) in my dreams and worry about them,” she said, “but at least I have learned to sleep.”

Despite the stress of seeing the traumas of runaways, “It feels good to do, to be there and be the support system for the kids.”

And she adds: “My life is good.”