Ted McCreary Honored with Legacy Award at SIMA Gala

Southern Indiana Mentoring Academy (SIMA) founder Ted McCreary was honored Saturday evening with the organization’s Legacy Award during the seventh annual Men That Wear Hats Gala, recognizing years of service and his vision to improve the lives of young people in Evansville through mentorship.

For McCreary, the moment was both humbling and emotional.

“It’s great,” he said after accepting the award. “Just thinking back from the beginning when we started up to this day, it’s just overwhelming.”

McCreary said the idea for SIMA was born out of concern. While driving around Evansville with a friend, he noticed children and teenagers out late at night and began asking what could be done to help.

Those conversations eventually led him to his pastor, Rev. Brooks, with whom he often played golf.

“I said, ‘We’ve got to do something,’” McCreary recalled.

He invited several friends to a meeting. Expecting only a handful of people, he was instead met by a room overflowing with men eager to become involved.

“The room was so full of men, especially Black men, it was overwhelming,” he said. “We had to move the meeting somewhere else the next week because there were so many men that showed up.”

The response surprised him, especially after hearing from others that few people would be willing to volunteer.

“People were telling me nobody’s going to come. Nobody’s going to get involved with the kids,” he said. “But it’s just been growing and growing and growing.”

One of SIMA’s first initiatives was taking young people to Camp Carson for a two-day retreat. Rather than immediately focusing on formal mentoring, the goal was simple: build relationships. “We wanted to organize the kids first,” McCreary said. “We wanted to have some fun things to get them interested so we could talk to them more.”

As the organization expanded, fundraising became another challenge. McCreary said his philosophy has always been straightforward.

“People just want to be asked,” he said. “All they can tell you is no.”

That willingness to ask—and clearly communicate SIMA’s mission—helped build support from schools, community foundations, businesses and individual donors.

Today, SIMA partners with Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation schools to provide mentors who work directly inside classrooms alongside teachers. “The unique thing about what we do as mentoring is we’re actually in the classroom with the teachers,” McCreary said. “That makes a big difference.”

He said education leaders from across Indiana have encouraged the organization to expand statewide. “People have told us, ‘What you all are doing, nobody else is doing. You need to take this across the state and across the country,’” he said. “But we’re trying to take care of these kids here in Evansville. That’s our mission.”

This year also marked an important leadership transition as McCreary passed the presidency of SIMA to Keion Boyde, whom he said he had been watching for years.

McCreary first observed Boyde and his wife, Polita Boyde, mentoring students at Lincoln School. “Some people have that ‘it’ factor,” he said. “Both of them have it. I saw the relationships they had with the kids, how they captured the classroom, and how they carried themselves. It made the transition easy.”

Boyde said McCreary’s persistence and solutions-oriented leadership have shaped not only SIMA, but those who have worked alongside him.

Presenting the Legacy Award, Boyde described McCreary as someone who refuses to accept “no” as the final answer.

“He is not willing to just complain,” Boyde said. “He wants to bring a solution with the complaint. There’s nothing wrong with having a complaint, but when you bring a solution with it, that says a lot about your character.”

Although SIMA has grown significantly since its founding seven years ago, McCreary believes the organization’s work is far from finished. His hope is to eventually expand mentoring into every Evansville Vanderburgh School Corporation school.

“We’ve had principals and counselors ask, ‘Can you come to our school?’” he said. “We just don’t have the mentors or the funding to do that yet.”

He encouraged community members to continue supporting the organization through financial contributions and volunteer service.

McCreary also announced that SIMA will partner with the YMCA, United Way of Southwestern Indiana and the City of Evansville to host a Youth Summit on October 15. A donor has pledged to match gifts of $1,000 toward the initiative.

For McCreary, however, the Legacy Award isn’t simply recognition for past accomplishments. It is a reminder that one conversation, one meeting, and one decision to act can transform a community.

What began with a simple question—“What can we do?”—has become an organization that continues to mentor, educate and inspire young people across Evansville.