Her name is Mary Thornton, and she’s from Marianna. For foster kids like Billy Riggs, she’s “Mama.”

Thornton, 67, has been a foster parent for 32 years. She specializes in teenagers, three of whom live with her now, and many of them considered to have challenging behaviors. Her first placement, she said, was “terrible. I almost gave her back.” 

But she has persevered, the result being many lives changed. 

“I had one, she went to the Army,” she said in an interview. “Still in the Army. I have one that was an RN. Some of them do good, and some of them don’t. But basically, I had more to achieve than I had to not achieve.”

Thornton is the Department of Human Services (DHS) Foster Family of the Year. She and nine other families from across the state – two of them single foster mothers like her – were honored May 14 at a Foster Family of the Year Gala at the Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts. 

May is National Foster Care Month. Foster children are children whom the state removes from their biological families because of neglect or abuse or otherwise for their well-being. Foster parents take care of the children on a short-term or long-term basis as the state tries, if it can, to reunify the families. They receive a stipend to take care of expenses, but it’s hardly a moneymaking opportunity.

The three children now living with Thornton – two 18-year-olds and a 16-year-old – are among the 3,400 children in foster care across Arkansas. Thornton often fosters several teenagers at a time. She never tells DHS no. She didn’t originally plan to be a foster parent for 32 years, “but before I can get one out good, they always send me another one,” she said with a laugh.

Like other foster parents, Thornton doesn’t just provide a roof and four walls; she provides a family. Riggs stayed with her eight years. Before he came to live with her, he had been in a facility since he was six years old. He didn’t have a mom and never knew his father, he said in a DHS video. He stole from stores and ate out of garbage cans. For a while, Thornton was taking care of him and two unrelated siblings. 

Another of her foster children, Shanisha Murphy, came to live with her at age 14 after a failed adoption. At the time, she declared that she didn’t remain in a foster home longer than a week or two and literally marked the days off her calendar. She would call her caseworker when Thornton punished her.

She stayed until she was 18.

“She has taught me how to be a woman,” Murphy, 34, said in the video. “She has taught me how to be a mother. She gives the best advice.”

Thornton, a mother of two daughters, one of whom died in 2022 and the other who herself does foster care, explains the rules to the young people when they arrive. They must take their baths at 9 p.m. and be in bed by 10. They arise in the morning and do their chores. She doesn’t let them look at inappropriate things. If they break a rule, she takes away their phone or a game. She gives them an allowance.

“If you show them that you really love them, and you help them learn by their mistakes, and they learn to earn your trust, that kid will eventually start being a better kid,” she said in the video.

The sacrifices have been great. Until she retired in 2021, she was a working foster mom. The last 17 years, she was a retail manager for It’s Fashion in Forrest City. She worked, came home, cooked and cleaned, made sure the kids did their homework, attended trainings, and took them to the doctor. She never really had an off day. For those who are considering doing foster parenting, she warns, “I would tell them if your heart is not in it, don’t get in it.”

But the rewards have been great, too – in the lives she touched and in the relationships she still has with the now-adults she parented. They still call or come by for visits and home cooking. 

“I always prided myself because I did something to help the kids, and I helped a lot of them achieve in life,” she said. “And I’m thankful for that. A lot of times I thought they weren’t listening, they were.”

That’s a Mama. 

© 2026 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Steve Brawner’s column is syndicated to 24 news outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.