When Gwendolyn Williams was hired as Kokomo-Center Schools’ first black female principal in 1987, she did not see herself as a role model.
Now, however, she can see how young people might look up to her, not only as a black woman, but as a person with a handicap. She is legally blind.
“I didn’t ever feel I was handicapped because you only are if you allow the handicap to define you. If you set forth to accomplish a goal and you work hard toward reaching that goal, not even a handicap can stop you,” she said.
The former principal, now Gwendolyn Thompson, retired from Kokomo-Center Schools in 1998, and lives in Port St. Lucie, Fla., with her husband, Joseph.
She said she does “very little work” these days, but continues to speak to school children and church youth groups about life skills, setting goals and networking.
Thompson, 73, belongs to social groups and “spends a lot of time out on the lanai and in the pool, working with the Wii game and really, really retiring,” Thompson said. She and her husband also travel frequently and enjoy cruises.
She decided to become a teacher while she was a sophomore in high school in Sedalia, Mo. Her high school commercial education teacher was her inspiration.
“She was the type of teacher who really inspired her students to do the best. I adopted my motto of teaching from her: ‘Learning is fun, and fun is learning.’ I really admired her and wanted to be a teacher just like her.”
After graduating, she went to Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Mo., but left after her first year when she married a military man and started a family.
After her third child was born, she started college at the College of Guam, where her husband was stationed. After he was transferred to Indiana, she finished her degree at Indiana University.
Her first teaching job was in the Maconaquah School Corp. After her husband retired from the military in 1973, they built a home on the west side of Kokomo. She worked at Maconaquah from 1972 to 1978, when she was hired as a kindergarten teacher at Kokomo’s Roosevelt Elementary.
As a primary teacher, Thompson said she especially enjoyed working with kindergartners, making their first learning experience fun so they would want more.
As a teacher and president of the teachers’ association, she became interested in working with many groups of people to educate children.
She said an old African proverb says that it takes a village to raise a child, and she believes that same concept applies to educating a child. “I could see how each group of people played a part in educating a child.”
She started her class work, and was hired as acting principal at Wallace Elementary in 1988. She was assistant principal at Bon Air Elementary from 1988 to 1989, then was principal at Elwood Haynes Elementary from 1989 until her retirement in 1998.
Even though she was the corporation’s first black female principal, she did not see herself as a role model at the time.
“At the time when I was hired I felt like I was no different from anyone else hired for the position. To me, it was another role in the field of education and I was part of the village. I felt like I was qualified, and I wanted the job, I worked toward reaching it and I had earned that position.”
Thompson hopes perhaps now young people can look at her example and “I show them that if you really in your heart want to reach a goal, work hard toward that goal and you will achieve. Perhaps I was a role model.”
• Danielle Rush is the Kokomo Tribune education reporter. She can be reached at 765-454-8585 or danielle.rush@kokomotribune.com.
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