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Photo by John Wagner

Photo by John Wagner

FAIRBANKS — Cathy Thomas was stranded near the corner of Farmers Loop and the Steese Highway, and she had a pressing engagement at the Dan Ramras Community Tennis Courts.

Needing a lift because her car had broken down, she called Gwen Ramras, the woman responsible for luring her to Fairbanks from California to teach tennis in the summer of 2001.

The ever-sociable and engaging Thomas, however, could have just stood by the road and someone she knew would have helped her.

“Two people stopped and asked to take her to the courts and it was only 15 minutes,” Ramras said.

“That’s a perfect example (of her impact in Fairbanks).”

Since her fateful journey north eight years ago — she chose Fairbanks over an opportunity to teach tennis in southern Mexico — Thomas, now 70, has returned to the Golden Heart City for three to six months every summer. She’ll be back again in 2010.

The reasons are simple.

“I think mainly it’s because I just fell in love with the people, and I love the challenge of trying to develop this program,” Thomas said on Aug. 14 from the courts next to the Mary Siah Recreation Center. A day later, she returned to her home in Palm Desert, Calif.

The indefatigable Thomas has made a huge difference, sometimes working 50 hours a week, Ramras said. She’s taught tennis to adults and kids as young as kindergarten and was vital in getting the high school program off the ground several years ago.

“She is the best ambassador for tennis that I have ever met,” said Ramras, a past president of the Fairbanks Tennis Association and currently a co-coordinator of the local high school program. “She is welcoming to young and old alike and terrific at introducing the game to anyone that crosses her path. I could have never found anyone within 20 years of her (age) that can work the hours on a court that she can and still have boundless energy to be social afterwards.”

Thomas is an unlikely candidate to have migrated to Fairbanks.

She was born in Liverpool, England, a town famous as the birthplace of The Beatles. When she was 30, her husband, who wanted to live in a warm climate, convinced Thomas to move to California. She’s been there ever since.

“My family calls me the Yank now,” Thomas said in a still-evident English accent.

A longing for England inspired Thomas to pick up tennis.

“I was homesick because I’m one of 12 kids, and I was the only one here (in America),” she said. “And I needed to do something or lose my mind, so I took my son down to the tennis courts.”

Thomas started teaching tennis in 1971, became a certified umpire in 1989 and has worked plenty of professional tournaments. She can regale anyone interested with stories such as being beaned by a Roscoe Tanner serve or putting John McEnroe in his place after he tried to intimidate her during a tournament at UCLA.

Next month at the U.S. Open in New York City, Thomas’ decades of work will be recognized with the Nicholas Powell Award. It is given by the U.S. Tennis Association to the country’s most outstanding grassroots umpire.

“I was so dumbstruck when they told me, I couldn’t believe it,” said Thomas, for once not laughing after finishing a sentence. “And then I cried. I was just in a daze, actually.”

The gray and white-haired Thomas has dedicated much of her adult life to the sport, going so far as to take the tags off of many trophies she won and redistribute them to kids.

“What I like about tennis is that it teaches you integrity. It teaches you respect of others and besides giving you a workout. You can play pretty much until the day you die,” she said.

One of the many youth she’s influenced in Fairbanks is Chris Poole, who has taken lessons from her and more recently spent two summers as her assistant in coaching others.

“She was my first coach,” the 2009 Hutchison High School graduate said. “She got me into tennis, got me loving tennis. I basically learned tennis from her.”

Poole will spend a few months this fall working with a coach in Palm Desert — where he will regularly see Thomas and Ramras, who also lives there — in hopes of improving his game and landing with a college tennis team. Thomas has taught Poole some valuable lessons.

“I’ve learned a lot from her, that to be a good coach you have to be very patient and got to be very enthusiastic,” Poole said by phone on Wednesday from Maine, where he is vacationing with his family. “She made classes really fun but she also made you work.”

A game called “Crocodile” — in which missing one volley meant you had to stand on one leg and missing another forced you to play on your knees — improved balance and coordination in a unique way, Poole said.

Ramras summed up her close friend, whom she got to know better after Thomas’ husband, Max, died in February, 2001.

“It’s kind of like the energizer bunny, she just keeps going,” Ramras said.