A Lancaster kid with a nightmare childhood and the teacher who wouldn’t turn him away

Back in 1986, a kid named Nate Busko was a distance runner on his Lancaster County high school track team. But no one knew what the boy with few friends was really running from.

They didn’t know he’d been living in his car for two years. They didn’t know about the violence and fear hardwired into his earliest memories. They didn’t know about the betrayals from one adult after another.

So when he got arrested for theft, just about everyone was ready to write him off.

Everyone but Stan Deen, a Garden Spot High School teacher and head of its hallowed performing arts program. Deen didn’t give up on any kid. He didn’t know Nate well at the time, but the New Holland teacher bailed him out, took him in. Just for a little while.

Or so he thought.

It was just the beginning of a trauma-fueled ride that would alter both their lives.

“I owe my life to Stan,” said Nate, now a man. “He helped me when I didn’t have hope.”

That alone might have been enough, but their story is bigger than that. Starting Friday, it will be known well beyond the rolling hills of Lancaster County.

Brave the Dark, a film about small-town heroism and redemption based on real events, will release Jan. 24 in major cinemas throughout the Philadelphia area and across the country. It stars Jared Harris, whose many credits include Chernobyl and The Crown, as Deen. Nicholas Hamilton of It and Captain Fantastic plays Nate. Meredith Sullivan, a Fishtown actress in her first feature film role, plays Nate’s mother in flashbacks. Much of the movie was filmed in Lancaster County.

In many ways, the film is a story about the big difference one person can make. That’s something its makers are hoping to continue to do in Stan Deen’s name.

The driving force behind Brave the Dark is Nathaniel Deen.

That’s Nate, the troubled, orphaned boy whom Stan Deen took under his wing and wouldn’t give up on. A photographer who is now also an independent film producer, Nate Deen, 57, adopted his beloved teacher’s name as an adult. He is one of the screenwriters on the film and still lives in Lancaster County.

Before Stan Deen died in 2016, he got to hear an earlier version of the screenplay of their story.

“He loved it,” Nate Deen said.

As did Angel Studios, which picked up Brave the Dark.

“Our hope is that this film serves as a reminder of the mentors and teachers who have shaped our own journeys,” said Jared Geesey, chief distribution officer, “while inspiring more to follow in the footsteps of people like Stan Deen.”

Earlier this month, several hundred people, including many former students, turned out for an invitation-only premiere of Brave the Dark at the Fulton Theatre in New Holland, the town where Stan Deen changed lives for some 30 years.

“Stan is the one who opened my eyes that there’s a bigger world out there. He was truly a mentor to me — a true second father-figure,” said Bob Hoshour, who was in the original Broadway cast of Cats, along with other successful productions.

A child of small-town factory workers, Hoshour never dreamed of a life on the stage until he got involved in Deen’s theater program and blossomed under his encouragement. Deen drove him to his audition for the North Carolina School of the Arts, and he was in the audience for Hoshour’s opening night of Cats.

“Literally, there are hundreds of us out here that he affected,” said Hoshour, 67, of New York City.

New Holland Mayor Timothy Bender, 59, was a Garden Spot sophomore when he “trashed” his knee playing football.

“As a 15-year-old boy, I pretty much felt the whole world had come to an end because I couldn’t do sports,” Bender said.

Deen kept “hounding” him to try out for the play they were doing. Bender, no theater kid, said the teacher wore him down. His audition was “horrible,” but he got three small roles. And to his surprise, he found something he loved.

“I had a blast,” he said. “It really lifted me up.”

He stayed with theater the next two years, and after high school as well.

“Some people are just great at reading other people,” said Bender. “He just would always have the right word to say, the thumbs up, the smile.”

Hillary Martin, 46, is now an English teacher at Garden Spot, where the auditorium is named after Stan Deen. She, her parents, and her siblings are all alums of the drama program, tutored by Deen. Martin, who is now producer of the program, insisted Deen come back after retirement to help her. He did.

She praised Nate Deen for having the bravery to tell his story as well as honoring Stan Deen, the man who never sought accolades but helped so many kids in so many ways.

“We’re public school teachers. We don’t have resources. None of that stopped Stan from stepping into a kid’s suffering. He asked the questions that needed to be asked: ‘Are you struggling in a class? Are you hungry? Come see me.’ Stan recognized when people were hurting, and he wasn’t afraid to step into that,” Martin said.

Brave the Dark is also about the struggle of a teenager to somehow get beyond the nightmare of his past, to heal and grow.

Nate Deen said he was only a little boy when he was sent to live in foster care and orphanage-like group homes until he ran away when he was 16.

“I know there are some good fosters, but for me, it wasn’t good,” he said. “I was told, ‘You’re going to be a loser. You’re never going to be anybody’,” he said.

During his first two years in foster care, he said, he didn’t speak.

“I wouldn’t talk, not even to the other kids,” he said. “I think the trauma was so severe that just nothing would vocally come out.”

At many homes, he said, there were no gifts at the holidays. At one group home he remembers as being kind, and where he still maintains ties, he said the kids got underwear. In one Brave the Dark scene, Stan invites Nate to open the gifts he has bought him for Christmas.

In the movie, as in real life, Nate couldn’t cope with the kindness.

“I knew how to handle trauma at that point in my life, which is really sad,” Deen said, “but I had no idea how to accept love.”

What it takes for Nate to learn to accept love, to trust, is key to Brave the Dark’s story.

“I think people need to understand that hard stuff happens to kids, and we shouldn’t lie about it. When you start lying to a child, you’re just building distrust,” Deen said. “That’s something Stan didn’t do. He never lied to me.”

Stan Deen never married or had children of his own. But his students were his children, and he and Nate became like family. Deen said he continued to live in his teacher’s home from 1986 through 1995, until after he graduated from the Philadelphia Art Institute where he studied photography. Their close relationship continued until the teacher’s death.

“His constant presence and persistence made the difference for me,” Deen said. “He never gave up, never judged, always encouraged, and brought out the best in me. He believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.”

In some ways, Brave the Dark is a pay-it-forward prelude, which includes Angel Studios providing free tickets for teachers to screenings of the film this Thursday.

Nate Deen and his wife, Jessica, a nurse, have started the Stan Deen Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to giving support including scholarships to children in the foster care system or who have experienced trauma.

“Stan was really big into the arts and education,” Deen said. “We want to continue his legacy of giving to and helping young people in need.”

For Nate, it is a fitting tribute.

“I am the man I am today because of him. I was the son he never had, and he was the father I so desperately needed,” Deen said.

“He is the hero of my story.”

“Brave the Dark” will play at local theaters. For showtimes, visit angel.com/tickets.