Bonham -- Proud family members and friends packed in Bailey Inglish Auditorium in Bonham Tuesday, June 14 to honor the 2011 Fannin Literacy Council H.O.P.E. GED graduates.
Allison Minton, prsident of Fannin Literacy Council welcomed to crowd for a graduation ceremony.
"That's what this is -- a celebration!" exclaimed Minton. "Education is liberating."
Minton recognized teacher Juanita Lance, ardent Fannin Literacy Council supporter Linda Long and volunteer teacher Norman Young.
The keynote speaker was someone who understands the importance of the Fannin Literacy Council and the role education has played to enrich the lives of Fannin County residents as new opportunities became available. Darrell Hall was instrumental in the development of the Fannin Literacy Council and he lives on a 100-year-old family farm in Mulberry.
A popular Bonham High School graduate in the early 70s, Hall went on to serve Fannin County as a county commissioner (1985-1992), chief probation officer (1996) and county judge (1997-2007). But it was an appreciation for higher learning that made Hall a founding member of the Fannin Literacy Council and that same belief in education brought him to the podium Tuesday, June 14.
The keynote speech started out more like a fable.
"Once upon a time long ago," Hall began, pausing to assure the graduates and audience that this would be a true story.
It would be the story of Alma, a 15-year-old sharecropper's daughter. There just wasn't any money for school clothes and certainly not enough for new shoes. As was the case with many post-Great Depression era families trying to coax a living from the soil, children were always needed to work on the farm. So, Alma quit school and, in search of a better life, soon got married.
She found herself heating water on a wood stove and carrying it to a ringer washing machine and bathing babies in the sink, but at night Alma liked to read to her children and every night she wondered what her life might have been like if she had finished high school and gone on to college. She might have been an educator reading to her class. Instead, she was making 40 cents an hour working at sewing factory.
But Alma heard about a GED course being offered in the evenings in Bonham, and she was determined not to let this opportunity slip away.
So, 25 years after entering the working world, Alma was back in the classroom. That summer when her son posed for graduation photographs in the backyard, Alma stood beside him. She had on a cap and gown and had her diploma, as well.
And Alma was on a roll.
At 41 she graduated from nursing school and entered the medical profession.
"Education didn't just have a positive influence on her," Hall remarked, "but it impacted her kids, her husband and patients. "Alma made a difference to a lot of people."
He said the same spark, the same quest for a better life that was so evident in Alma was also well represented by the 2011 graduates seated to his right. In closing, he explained how he knew this story so well.
"You see...once upon a time long ago, Alma was my mother," Hall said quietly.
