In honor of Father’s Day, the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas unveiled its 2024 Father of the Year award winners over the weekend.
Caleb Wood. Photo courtesy of Lake Highlands Family YMCA
The Lake Highlands Family YMCA named Caleb Wood as the 2024 Father of the Year. To be nominated for the award, the individual must be a YMCA member who embodies “the YMCA character values of Caring, Honesty, Respect, and Responsibility in their efforts at the YMCA or their communities.”
“Fathers hold a special place in their child’s life, it’s a bond unlike any other,” said Curt Hazelbaker, President & CEO of the YMCA of Metropolitan Dallas, in a press release. “All 18 fathers selected to receive the Father of the Year award have displayed compassion, spirit, and commitment to service. They’re role models for their children and leaders in our community.”
Father’s Day was first celebrated in Spokane, Washington in 1910 at the local YMCA after Sonora Louis Smart Dodd, the daughter of a single father, thought it was odd fathers did not have an equivalent to Mother’s Day. The holiday was first nationally commemorated in 1966 when President Lyndon Baines Johnson issued a presidential proclamation designating the third Sunday in June as Father’s Day. Father’s Day was further enshrined in 1972, with President Richard Nixon signing it into law as an official holiday.
