LifePath
The purpose of LifePath is to share with you, our reader, stories of individuals with common experiences and unique challenges.
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Julia Howard
More
than three decades after establishing her successful and continuing
business, this woman -- a balance sheet wizard with no formal training, dreamt of completing her college degree,
dreamt of reaching unfinished goals, dreamt of learning more. She wanted to
grow.
More than two decades after she first took college
courses, this mother --- widowed when her youngest son had just
finished Clemson University and facing life as the one
parent remaining --- still thought of college. She and her high school sweetheart had inspired their
children to complete college, and her husband had supported her reaching that goal, but he
would not live to see it happen (after he succumbed to
ALS, what many of us know as Lou Gehrig’s disease).
More than a
decade after winning election to the North Carolina
legislature, this former police commissioner (a position she held as a
member of the Town Board of Mocksville for eight years) ---
not enamored of power but understanding how it works ---
still dreamt of studying the
words and ideas of others.
Almost a decade after being awarded
North Carolina’s most prestigious honor, Order of the Long Leaf Pine,
this woman --- small in stature but large in service --- still wanted to learn how to be more effective in
social service.
One day, this woman decided she could balance all aspects of her life and go to
college too. So, she walked into the dean’s office and said that she
was ready to finish her degree.
Meet Julia Howard, mother, grandmother, businesswoman, legislator, and college graduate.
With
one child and his family in Pennsylvania and her other child living
with her
family just below Vancouver, British Columbia, Julia was more
than the sum of her business and civic commitments, more than her
multiple studies. She was also a frequent flier! She drove back and
forth from her home in Mocksville to Raleigh, then from Raleigh to
Winston-Salem to school-- between her business and the business of the
state,
between her studies and the classroom, doing one course
after another, she flew back and forth. South to north, east to west,
and back.
Not one minute was wasted as she sought her four-year degree ---- which she earned, by the way,
in three years.
How? Well, the story is that she
studied for
ornithology by using the pages of Peterson’s Guide to Birds as
flash cards. Don’t tell, but she propped them on the steering wheel
--- ever so quickly glancing at pictures to memorize the parts and
names of the many birds she had to know. Then each Saturday, you’d
find her tramping through woods and marshlands, bird watching,
learning habits and habitats of the Carolina Wren or the
chickadee or the goldfinch or the many others she had to know.
By Sunday afternoon she was on her way back to Raleigh --- with more to
memorize.
What about Spanish, math, English, history, or her
major---Sociology?
She studied all, and more, taking most of her courses in the classroom, but finding community college
online courses to fill in gaps and help her reach her goal while
balancing her other responsibilities, such as chairing the House Ethics Committee, being vice-chair of the House Finance
Committee, and filing for her House seat every two years.
Now
serving her 10th consecutive term, the Honorable Julia Howard hasn’t
stopped growing and learning. During 2007- 2008 she has chaired the
Southern Legislative Conference, which includes 17 southern states from
Virginia to Oklahoma, from Texas to
North Carolina, a conference comprised of the legislators from all 17
states. No small task!
Her sisters, her community, her
constituency, her colleagues, her state --- all know what makes Julia
successful. She is both kind and tough, understanding and ethical, compassionate but courageous
We
are proud to include Julia Howard in this series of stories about
women, women who have had seemingly insurmountable challenges --- and
taken them on and bested them.
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| Julia Howard |
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Jennifer Dunn
Even with two children in college and two in public school, while working as an engineer for a major company in the region and managing a busy household, Jennifer Dunn knew that she wanted to earn a four-year degree in business administration.
She figured out a way to make that happen and still do all that she needed to do to maintain her family and her career. Obviously something had to give----was it the garden, the dusting, reading for pleasure, even reading of the newspaper for all the details? Undoubtedly!
Some others had to pick up some of the work----the family pitched in to support Jennifer, just as all, including Jennifer, were continually pitching in to help each other. It was a team effort.
The belief in teamwork began early in Jennifer’s life. She was raised on a small tobacco farm, down east North Carolina, where she recalls all the farm workers, including all the family, would come in from a long morning of work to a mid-day dinner, prepared by Jennifer’s grandmother, and sit around the big table together. Everyone on that farm enjoyed the fruits of labor equally just as they labored together.
Jennifer's discipline of study and commitment to a job well done came early as well. As a young girl, she was encouraged to play the piano and then the organ. Practice was a necessity and something she could not avoid. As Jennifer has said, there wasn’t much to do out there in the country, so “playing the piano was something to do!” She did it so well that she was hired at age 12 to play the organ at the church that her family attended. Jennifer has held organist positions ever since ---yes, ever since! Her friends know that she won’t be available on Wednesday evenings or Sunday mornings or evenings (and sometimes other evenings of the week). She’s busy as the church organist, a job she managed to maintain at the same time she was going to school, holding down a “day job,” and managing a family, a job she continues to manage.
Jennifer’s two-year degree in engineering was her ticket to her first jobs in that career. Her four-year degree was her ticket to jobs in the banking industry. However, she didn’t walk in right after graduation and find the perfect banking job; she found it before she graduated. She found it by becoming an intern during her last semester of college. Jennifer was specializing on marketing in her business administration major (with minors in sociology and not-for-profit management). Despite a packed college program of study, she needed to select an elective course to complete her degree plan. She chose to make an internship that elective course. -- story continues : LifePath section 2
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Debra Kovalak
In
the seven years that it took Debra Kovalak to complete her bachelor’s
degree, she was able to triple her salary. While that is a compliment
to Deb Kovalak, she credits her success to her pursuit of her degree at
Salem College.
Debra didn’t go back to school until her three
girls were grown – or almost grown. When she graduated from Salem,
Debra’s children and grandson were her biggest cheerleaders. Her family
was there for her. As she says, “They encouraged me more than I can
tell you.” Her family included not only her children and grandson, but
also her husband and several of her brothers and sisters. They number
twelve.
That’s right. Twelve! Debra grew up in coal country --
western Pennsylvania – on a small, but sustainable sixty-acre farm. In
fact, her father was a coal miner and a farmer. He worked the mines and
the fields. With his hard work, the support of his wife whom he married
when she was seventeen, and the work and support as well of those
twelve children, the family sat down each day to farm fresh meals
around their large and accommodating table. Debra says that all twelve
continue to be best friends even though they have grown up, gone off to
live in various parts of the country, and have families of their own.
“My
parents were happily married for 50 years, and there was money for all
the necessities, but college for a girl? ---- My dad had only finished
eighth grade. Nevertheless, I would not have traded my childhood for
anyone’s, but I did always wish that I could go to college.”
Debra’s
story is true for so many young women of the mid-twentieth century. If
a family could not afford college for the children, they went to work
instead. So, when Debra finished high school, college was not a choice.
She went to work. However, she had always wanted to continue her
education, and she was finally able to do so. She began, as so many
adults do, at a community college near her home on the coast of North
Carolina. When she moved to the Piedmont, she again chose a community
college. She went to Forsyth Technical Community College. She never
dreamed that she might go to a private four-year liberal arts college.
So, after taking courses in the two-year community college system, she
decided to go to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The
problem --- it was a long drive to get there from her home in
Winston-Salem. She was working full time and trying to go to school
full time. After she left work she barely had time to drive to school,
take the courses, and do the homework, let alone have a home life.
Something had to change!
Enter a friend ---- that friend, an
alumna of Salem College, said to Debra that she should try Salem
College. Debra quotes her friend as saying, “Just stop by and meet Dean
Patterson.” Debra did just that. The rest is history!
“As anyone
who has ever met Dean Patterson knows: you walk into Salem College
thinking, ‘maybe I would like to attend here,’ and you walk out of Dean
Patterson’s office with your curriculum for the next semester in your
hand. She gives you the feeling that you have just made the best
decision of your life. ---- And you have!”
In 2004, Debra
walked across the stage of Salem College to be hooded by Dean
Patterson, having earned a BS in Business Administration and having
been honored the year before by being among a selective group of Salem
students to attend a summer program at Oxford University.
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| Debra Kovalak |
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Peggy Jenkins Yontz went to college in 2003, after years as a business analyst, project manager and owning her own businesses. She knew that she wanted to become an Interior Designer. In 2007 she completed her degree. She reached her goal against all odds, the same odds that so many women face as they work toward earning a degree while managing a family (more often than not as a single
mother), while managing a fulltime job in the workplace, and while managing volunteer positions in their communities because they believe in all of the above. Even though Peggy did all of the above, she credits others for their mentoring as one means to her successes. Now she is
mentoring others, modeling her mentoring after what she has known and also thinking creatively about how she can make her mentorships meaningful. Peggy has named this Sisters' Initiative:
Giving Back, Moving Forward.
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