When

Curtis McRae, Jr.

, first visited the Vance-Granville Community College campus, he said he liked it and thought he probably would like to go the school there. But he had a job in his hometown of Oxford and didn’t want to change at the time.

After graduation from J.F. Webb High School in 1987, Curtis entered the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, hoping to earn G.I. Bill college tuition. After returning from boot camp and Marine schooling, he took a job and soon found he was as high as he could go in it. It was then he began looking at VGCC but, before enrolling, he obtained employment as a health care technician at John Umstead Hospital in Butner.

A human resources person at Umstead mentioned to Curtis that VGCC offered courses related to his work and, since he was working second shift, he enrolled in the Recreation Associate program. “It fit in with my interest in sports and fitness and also with my vocation since the program included therapeutic recreation,” he said.

Curtis attended VGCC in 1994-96, graduating in August 1996. He was a top-notch student, a marshal at the 1995 graduation and a member of Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society of two-year colleges. “I was president of Phi Theta Kappa, and that helped me become more comfortable speaking to large groups. My current job requires me to talk to influential people in companies and organizations.”

Two days after graduation from VGCC, Curtis was given a job as rehabilitation therapist at Umstead, where he worked until July 1998, when he left to become Activity Director and Residential Service Manager for the Carolina Campus of Learning Services Corp. in Durham.

In his role as activity director, Curtis assesses each client and sets up individual programs for persons with acquired brain injuries. When he arrived, there were no set programs, and he has worked with numerous organizations to place his clients. The people who live in the homes were living normal lives prior to their injuries, and they are very capable; it is Curtis’ responsibility to fit them where they are most capable. He has groups volunteering at the Durham Public Library and the University of North Carolina Botanical Gardens, and others attending the YMCA for recreation.

He also manages one of Learning Services’ group homes and is responsible for staffing, paying bills and maintenance of the house where brain-damaged people live as families.

“Going to Vance-Granville was one of the best moves I ever made,” Curtis said. “I liked the overall atmosphere there; it was more like a family atmosphere. My classmates and I developed a closeness, like brothers and sisters, and we had dinners and picnics together.”

Cutis, 30, is enrolled at N.C. Central University and is close to a degree in Parks and Recreation Management. His goal is to establish and manage a recreation facility for the disabled. “I can’t explain it, but I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for the less fortunate,” he said. That may stem from his father, the Rev. Curtis McRae, who pastors United Congregational Christian churches in Granville and Warren counties.

Most of the courses he took at VGCC transferred to NCCU. He said the study habits he formed at Vance-Granville have helped him at NCCU, and he also applies them to his everyday tasks and to planning.

In addition to his demanding job and his studies at NCCU, Curtis has found time to be a volunteer coach for the basketball team of his daughter, Ashley, 8, in the Oxford Recreation league. He also recommends youth coaching as a volunteer effort for recreation program graduates.

Curtis McRae praises the faculty at Vance-Granville and, in particular, Jane Jackson, the program head/instructor for Recreation & Leisure Studies. “The instruction was more personal and there was always special assistance available,” he said. “When I meet my former instructors today, they know me by name.”

“I would recommend Vance-Granville Community College to anyone, whether they’re interested in a technical field or in transferring to a university,” said Curtis. “Attending Vance-Granville is not only educational, it is fun. If I had it to do over, I wouldn’t change a thing.”

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Girlhood Dream Comes True
For VGCC-Trained Nurse

Martha Woodard Rowland

knew at a young age she wanted to be a nurse. “I read all the Sue Barton books,” she said, referring to a popular juvenile series of seven books that follow the nursing career of a New Hampshire girl. She also read whatever else she could find on nursing and knew that someday she would wear a white uniform and help the sick.

Like many others, it took quite a few years for her dreams to come true but, thanks to her unyielding determination and Vance-Granville Community College, she has achieved a great deal in nursing and is pursuing even higher goals.

Martha grew up in the Epsom community in Franklin County and graduated from the former Epsom High School. But, before nursing had a chance, love took over, she married James Rowland of the Bobbitt community of southern Vance County, and they began tending his family’s farm and raising a family.

While rearing three sons – Rudy, Randy and Ryan – and helping plant and harvest numerous tobacco crops, Martha never lost her nursing dream. After being out of school 23 years, she finaly took the big step and attended Vance-Granville’s licensed practical nursing program.

“I think it’s neat that an older person can return to school,” she said. “I competed with a different generation and I felt I had to work especially hard to prove myself to my family and to everyone.”

“Being mature helped me when I went back to school because I knew what I wanted and knew I had to work hard to get it,” Martha said. “And I did study hard, for long hours, and I got good grades.”

After she had gotten her LPN and worked about a year in a nursing home, VGCC began its associate degree nursing (ADN) program in 1983, which prepares women and men to be registered nurses.

Martha was one of about 200 applicants for the first class and was one of 44 accepted – 24 first-year students who would go two years and 20 LPNs like herself who only needed one year to complete the requirements for the ADN. Since graduation with the first ADN class in 1984, Martha’s nursing has been at both ends of the age spectrum. She has had three years in geriatrics and 12 in obstetrics at Maria Parham Hospita, where she is now the assistant director of Women and Infants nursing.

“We help deliver 650 babies a year here, and we assist in gynecological surgery,” she said. Work is underway now to upgrade Maria Parham’s nursery to Level II. When it is completed, planned for early August, “We’ll be able to keep and care for sicker babies and be able to feed and grow babies that normally stayed in tertiary centers,” she said. “They can stay here or come back here sooner, which will make it more convenient for their families.”

“Maria Parham is a good hospital and is good to its employees,” she said proudly. “Our services are growing to meet the needs of the community.”

Martha likes the way that community colleges give people an opportunity to study a little as part-time students or full-time as she did. “And while I was the oldest person in my nursing class, I found everyone was receptive to me: the instructors and the other, younger students.

“My nursing training at Vance-Granville has prepared me well for my nursing duties,” she said. As an example, she tells of some special classes she was sent to after graduation where she discovered she had already received the training at VGCC. “I tell everyone who wants to know you can get a good nursing background at Vance-Granville.”

Martha Rowland isn’t through with Vance-Granville Community College. She’s taking night classes as prerequisites to enter North Carolina Central University to earn a bachelor’s of science in nursing, and she said she may pursue a master’s. Vance-Granville has also been a family affair for the Rowlands. Husband James has attended small engine and air conditioning classes that have helped him with his farming. Son Ryan earned an associate’s degree in the college transfer program prior to going to East Carolina University, where he recently graduated with a degree in accounting and will pursue his master’s. Son Rudy’s wife is also a VGCC graduate as well as being the mother of James and Martha’s two grandchildren.

“I’m a better person, more understanding and compassionate, because of the training and the experiences I have obtained,” said Martha Rowland.

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VGCC Provides Path
From Assembly Line To Accounting

Hilda H. Baskerville

knew she had to work. She was a single parent, separated from her husband, with a teenage son and daughter to raise. She had a pretty good job as an assembler on the production line at Alaris Medical Systems in Butner. In fact, she liked the company very much; she just felt she could do better than the assembly line.

So in 1989, at the encouragement of her sister, Hilda began a relationship with Vance-Granville Community College by taking a typing class and than a couple of computer courses. She began the computer programming curriculum, but decided that really wasn’t what she wanted.

Hilda had taken some accounting classes and, realizing she liked the number crunching more than computers, she switched her major. In the meantime, Alaris supported Hilda’s efforts by paying for her schooling through its educational assistance program.

In 1994, Alaris moved Hilda from the assembly line into an office to train for a temporary job as a production clerk. “I was chosen over several others who applied, and I’m sure it was because I was enrolled in Vance-Granville,” she said.        

She graduated with an associate in applied science degree in Accounting in August 1996 after having been a Dean’s List student and having been selected for Phi Theta Kappa, the national honor society of two-year colleges.

The production clerk job at Alaris became permanent, and Hilda holds it today, issuing all the paperwork for the production department and assisting the supervisor and job planner.

“All the training I received at Vance-Granville – the typing, computer courses, English – all of it gave me more confidence in myself,” Hilda said. “It made me try to do more than stay on the (assembly) line.”

A couple of VGCC instructors stand out in Hilda’s mind. “James Wheeler made me really dig in his finance class,” she said. “I flunked a test for the first time in his class, and that made me determined not to fail the course and to work harder.”

When things seemed to be going hard for Hilda, she could always look to Nancy Tunstall for encouragement. Tunstall taught Hilda computer courses and algebra at the Warren County Campus and would tell her, “You can do it, Hilda.”

Tunstall, who is the Warren Campus coordinator today, remembers that it took a lot of courage for Hilda Baskerville to return to school.

Hilda lives in the Hecks Grove community of Warren County and cites the convenience of being able to take classes at the Warren Campus or Main Campus on the way back from work in Butner as advantages of VGCC. Both her children – daughter, Yolanda, and son, Howard – have also taken courses at VGCC, and Hilda wants them to get more training at the college.

As though being a full-time mother, student and employee weren’t enough, Hilda has found time to teach Sunday school, to be director of the Youth Department at Union Grove Baptist Church, to be adult advisor to the Youth Choir, to sing in the Gospel Choir, to be the church’s financial secretary, and to be a member of the Missionary Department and Usher Board.

In the meantime, she has developed a real taste for education and is currently enrolled at Barton College in Wilson, working on a bachelor’s degree in accounting. She’d like to parlay it into a job in the Alaris accounting department – a long way from the assembly line for Hilda Baskerville.

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Living The Life He Envisioned

Henderson Native Did Not Allow
Visual Impairment To Hinder Pursuit Of Dreams

When

Dwight F. “Steve” Murphy

was attending Vance High School, “All I wanted to do was graduate, get a job, buy a car and not have to work on weekends,” he said.

All that happened. After getting his diploma in 1972, he went to work in the Rose’s Stores warehouse and began to live the life he had envisioned. Then something happened he hadn’t planned upon — he began to lose his vision.

Steve developed an eye condition called retinus pigmentosa, commonly known as “tunnel vision,” in which he began to gradually lose his sight, starting first with peripheral vision.

“That made me realize I had to get an education if I wanted to continue working and take care of myself,” he said. In 1981, Steve enrolled at Vance-Granville Community College and began to take college transfer courses. After finishing at VGCC, he transferred to Western Carolina University, from which he earned a B.S. in psychology in 1986.

After finding his degree “was not worth much,” Steve began to look around and discovered a vocational specialist program for the blind and visually impaired at Mississippi State University. After a year there, he got a graduate internship at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C., from which he earned a master’s in education in 1988.

Now ready to enter the world of work, Steve began employment as a rehabilitation counselor for the North Carolina Division of Services for the Blind in Fayetteville. In January 1996, after seven years in Fayetteville, he was promoted and is now rehabilitation supervisor for nine counties out of the Services for the Blind office in Raleigh.

Over the years, Steve, now 46, has gradually lost all his vision, only being able to distinguish light. But through modern technology, such as “talking” computers, he is able to fully carry out his responsibilities, which include supervising, counseling and training.

Recalling his situation at the time, Steve is convinced Vance-Granville was just what he needed when he returned to school. “Remember, I had not been a good student in high school, I had no study skills and I needed help to make the transition to college,” he said.

The small classes at VGCC and the labs where he got individual help were especially important to Steve. “I believe the instructors I had at Vance-Granville were just as good as those I had later on,” he said. “They considered the situations of the students, many of whom were older and holding down jobs, and they didn’t try to work them to death, while still helping them get what was important.”

Steve remembers in particular Martha Bergeron, who is program head and instructor in English at the college today. “She really helped me through the first English classes,” he said. “And she taught me good writing skills that are necessary to succeed in today’s competitive world.”

In addition to succeeding professionally, Steve is coping very well in his personal life. He is single and currently owns his third home, which he cleans and cares for himself. He also does his own cooking.

Steve took up karate one and a half years ago, has a green belt and is closing in on black belt. “It is a good stress reliever and is the most strenuous exercise I’ve ever done,” said Steve, who was always active in sports before losing his sight. In fact, he still water skis at Kerr Lake and likes to roller skate.

After college, Steve said he learned to appreciate musical theatre, “something I never would have done when I was younger.” He recently “saw” Miss Saigon in Raleigh, through a wireless headset that describes the scenes when there is no singing.

Steve’s father, Lawrence Murphy, has moved from Henderson to Nashville, N.C., and Steve has one brother, Randy Murphy, still in Vance County.

“Vance-Granville Community College helped me build successes to make me have confidence in myself and feel I could accomplish anything,” Steve said. “I think community colleges like Vance-Granville can be a very positive experience, especially for those who don’t know what they want to do.

“It’s a great opportunity. The price is right, and the learning environment is there.”

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Giving Education A Second Chance

Norlina Native Uses VGCC As Stepping Stone
To Two Master’s Degrees, Career As Librarian

By her own admission,

Stacy Wiggins Rideout

kind of coasted through high school with “not very good grades.” But when the Norlina native arrived at Vance-Granville Community College in 1991, she said she found a whole different atmosphere, “that gave me the motivation to learn.”

She also found instructors like Vesta Manning who was “so different from any I’d had before. She challenged us, did not accept excuses and made me feel more responsible and accountable,” Stacy said.

Stacy was living in Raleigh when she came to Vance-Granville, but she has an aunt, Jane Jackson of Warren County, the instructor and program head for Recreation & Leisure Studies, who helped steer her toward VGCC. Her parents, Buck and Karen Wiggins, were from Norlina, and Stacy had spent a lot of time there with her late grandmother, Cornelia Wiggins.

At VGCC, Stacy responded well to the urging of Manning and other instructors and graduated in 1993 with an associate in arts degree from the College Transfer program. She was a 4.0 student and was named a VGCC College Transfer Scholar.

“Everthing I took transferred to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where I graduated in 1996 with a double major in English and history,” Stacy said. She was named to the honor societies for both English and history and was a founding member at UNC-W of Phi Sigma Pi, a national honor society.

“If not for my VGCC experience, I would not have been as successful at UNC-W,” Stacy said. “I needed attention, and I got personal attention in the small classes. I knew all my professors and even other professors cared about what was happening to me. I was better prepared for UNC-W than if I had gone straight from high school,” she said.

“I remember being at a Dean’s List dinner while at UNC-Wilmington and telling the head of the English department how much I liked my community college experience and how much better prepared I was because of it,” Stacy said. “This upset the department head.”

While at UNC-W, Stacy met Robert Rideout. They both went off to Louisiana State University, Robert to law school and Stacy to graduate work at the LSU School of Library and Information Sciences. They were married at Norlina Baptist Church on August 8, 1998.

Stacy received her master’s degree from LSU in 1998 and moved to Greenville, N.C., where she works at the East Carolina University Health Sciences Library. She teaches classes about databases on medicine, nursing, general data and the Internet, and she provides one-on-one reference assistance to students.

Not through with school yet, Stacy, 26, is working on another master’s in English with a focus on technical writing at ECU. “I’d ultimately like to do something in this field because it would give me more freedom,” she said.

When she went to Louisiana, which has no community college system, Stacy Rideout says she learned to appreciate the North Carolina system even more She has a brother who got out of high school and worked several years, then Stacy urged him to take community college courses to prepare him for college and better things. He followed her advice and, at age 23, he is a  freshman at Warren Wilson College in Asheville.

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Through Vocational Classes At VGCC,
Dropout Gains Training For Better Career

He was a high school dropout but, thanks to help from the community college system,

George J. Battle

has his life together, and the future is looking good.

The Louisburg resident left high school and began working at Burlington Industries in Raleigh. While there, he earned his general equivalency diploma (G.E.D.) through Wake Technical Community College. Then Burlington Industries closed its Raleigh plant.

Since the jobs at the textile plant were being moved out of the country, the government offered retraining, and George jumped at the opportunity to attend community college full time and get a degree. Since Vance-Granville Community College was so close to home, he entered its Air Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration program, which he finished in 1997.

After graduation, the state’s Job Service helped George find employment with Newcomb and Company, an air conditioning and heating contractor in Raleigh. “I went to work right out of school (at VGCC) and thought I’d work there a little while,” he said. That “little while” has turned into two years, and both sides seem very satisfied with how things have worked out.

“With my technical diploma, I advanced faster than I would have in an apprentice program,” George said. “In two months, I had my own truck and was doing everything that technicians who have been there much longer were doing,” he said. He is a service technician for residential and commercial air conditioning and heating systems and is on call evenings and weekends.

George is high on the training he received at VGCC. “I think the most helpful things in the course were the computer simulations that give you actual situations you’ll see in the field and show you how to solve problems,” he said.

The company for which George works also has a Carrier Master Dealer program that he is working toward. “VGCC gave me access to information that I’ll see in a program like this that I would not have encountered on the job as an apprentice,” he said.

George, 37, is married and lives in Louisburg with his wife and 14-year-old daughter. He said he originally wanted to study electricity before going into air conditioning and heating, and he may return to school when time permits to pick up electrical studies at the Franklin County Campus of Vance-Granville. This would give him an even more marketable combination of skills.

Is George Battle sold on a Vance-Granville Community College education? He has a nephew who just graduated from Franklinton High School, and George has encouraged him to attend VGCC. The youth plans to enroll this fall in either the Air Conditioning and Heating program or Electrical/Electronics Technology.