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The Paducah Sun
June 19, 2003
Technical society celebrates 50 years
The Paducah Section of the Instrumentation Systems and Automation Society is
celebrating its 50th anniversary at a ceremony June 21 in the ballroom of the
Irvin Cobb Apartments.
Eighteen of the section's life members will be honored and awarded life member
jackets in recognition of their service to ISA, as well as to the section and
its many projects supporting education. Past section presidents will also be
recognized.
Invited guests include Barbara Veazey, West Kentucky Community and Technical
College president; Lowell McCaw, president-elect secretary of ISA; Leo Staples,
ISA treasurer; Leo Lang, District 8 vice president; Howard Zinschlag, past president
of ISA; and Stephen Huffman, past vice president of District 8.
The Paducah Section was chartered by ISA members that came out of the Manhattan
Project in Oak Ridge, Tenn.
In the past 50 years, it has donated more than $100,000 in cash and in-kind
contributions (materials, supplies, etc.) to West Kentucky Technical College.
In 1989, it established a fund that so far has resulted in the awarding of more
than 30 full scholarships to University of Kentucky engineering students attending
WKCTC.
The section also sponsors a Student Section of the ISA at local high schools.
This was started in 1993 by the late Don Thompson.
Engineers and technicians wishing to join the Paducah Section can call Gene
Sanders at 554-6640.
The Paducah Sun
June 19, 2003
Never give up, Never surrender
For 70 years, Mary Sledd has devoted time to her family and her community.
It's not in Mary Glenn Sledd's nature to give up.
Sledd overcame the challenges of rearing her five younger brothers and sisters
at age 15 after her mother died from ovarian cancer. With the permission of
school administrators, Mary Glenn walked several blocks to her house from Lincoln
High School each day during fifth period to change her mother's bandages. Her
mother died in 1931; Sledd graduated in 1933 at the age of 16. She wanted to
attend West Kentucky Industrial College, but money wasn't available after her
father was laid off from the railroad shops. The school business manager said
she could pay the $15 registration later, but a friend standing behind her in
line slipped her the money.
Seventy years later, Sledd, 85, will be honored during the West Kentucky Alumni
Association gathering at 8 p.m. Saturday in the Ritz Hotel ballroom. The public
is invited, and $10 donations will be accepted at the door.
"I think I'm the only person from the old West Kentucky Industrial College
living when it was D.H. Anderson's old school," Sledd said. "I am
just blessed. Honestly, it seems impossible. If I hadn't had a strong spiritual
background, I think I'd be somewhere sitting in a tree and trying to get down."
Ever determined, Sledd didn't allow financial shortfalls to derail her path.
She graduated in 1935 and enrolled in typing classes and shorthand during the
evenings.
When her father died in 1938, Sledd became head of the household. At 21, she
worked as a preschool teacher and playground worker to make ends meet. "Ironically,
most of those kids were disadvantaged," Sledd recalled. Three black-and-white
photographs of a young Mary Glenn surrounded by preschoolers hang on a wall
in her den.
Her brother, Harold Glenn, enrolled in the National Youth Administration courses
for disadvantaged youth and became an inspector for a shipyard in Virginia.
He later carried out her lifelong dream of enlisting in the armed services at
Tuskegee, Ala., where he joined the Air Force.
"I have always wanted to go into the Army," Sledd said. "I
had never gotten a chance to travel. I was made to be grown up at a young age.
But it all turned out well with the good Lord's help. There were many a day
that I wanted to catch a train and never come back."
But she didn't.
Those emotionally draining experiences of being thrust into parenthood too
soon matured Sledd. After brief employment at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base
in Dayton, Ohio, she returned to Paducah and began a career that lasted for
28 years as a business teacher and co-op coordinator at West Kentucky. Sledd
worked during the day and attended classes at night at Murray State University,
earning her bachelor's in vocational/technical education in 1973. She earned
her master's in co-op education/business education two years later.
"After I got started, I was determined not to give up," Sledd said.
"Yet some of the young kids today don't know what it is to have opportunities.
If I'd had everything I wanted, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. Things
turn out best in the long run."
Sledd's determination rubbed off on her students and her family. Her youngest
brother, James E. Glenn, became the first African American hired by the Internal
Revenue Service in Kentucky. One student, Lynda Rains Warren, didn't want to
attend West Kentucky, but her parents forced her to move to Paducah from Danville.
Sledd encouraged her, and now Warren works with students at the Kentucky School
for the Blind. Sledd was so touched by her former student's success that she
sent a donation to the school for the blind. "She's one of the smartest
students that I've ever taught."
Other students stand out in her mind, but Sledd says the most rewarding times
came when she watched a "young person who almost seemingly had no chance
at all to succeed" make it in the business world.
Cards from former students are scattered around her den. Some still drop by
to share a few lines of poetry with her and thank her for encouragement and
motivation.
Sledd expected a lot from her students, and the good ones earned praise as
references when they applied for jobs. Those who dawdled and didn't make it
to class saw the harsher side of her normally sweet personality. "Nobody
came to my class late," she said. "Anybody can be late, but once you
start it, you're in trouble. You see what it does."
She was late to work just once, when she couldn't hail a cab. Sledd, who is
always attired with colorful outfits, matching shoes and stylish hats, headed
to work that day in such a rush that she pulled on one blue shoe and one black
shoe.
But Sledd's influence reached far deeper than West Kentucky Technical School.
She never declined a chance to help others in the community or at her church,
Washington Street Baptist. "I was asked," Sledd explains. "As
my late husband (Harry W. Sledd) said, 'You don't know how to say no.''
Her resumé lists an impressive string of community involvements from
serving on the American Red Cross board, serving as a judge for 4-H talks, serving
as a Girl Scout camp leader and devoting 19 years as a commissioner for the
Paducah Housing Authority. Sledd also served as a board member and officer of
the Paducah-McCracken County Mental Health Center in the 1960s and was a member
of the Martin L. King Area Housing Redevelopment Program where she helped win
a $1 million grant to revive the neighborhood in the 1990s. She also served
as superintendent and Sunday school teacher at Washington Street Baptist for
50 years.
"She is a professional woman, a good friend and really has worked very
hard to help students be the best that they could be," said City Commissioner
Gerry Montgomery. "When I was mayor, I gave her a Distinguished Citizen
Award. She had done so much and touched so many lives that we gave her one of
those awards."
But it's the little things that Sledd doesn't tell and that few know about
that set her apart. Gail Ridgeway, a counselor at West Kentucky Community and
Technical College, remembers coming home one day when she was a single mother
and finding a bag of groceries on her porch. "While she's bigger than life
(in her fashion sense), she goes around doing things quietly," Ridgeway
said. "Up until about two years ago, she would quietly leave a bag of groceries
on the doorstep" for people in need.
"She really does sincerely love people and wants to help everybody,"
Montgomery said. "I always found her to be a very giving person with her
talents, her time, her resources and her knowledge."
In her younger years, Sledd helped people with transportation problems. "I've
never seen her without another person in the car," Ridgeway said. "It
might have been a older lady needing a ride to the grocery or to the doctor's
or a kid needing a ride to church."
Ridgeway says if someone asked former West Kentucky students if Sledd touched
their lives, about 80 percent would say yes.
But Sledd says her work in the community was necessary. "I think everything
that I've done has needed to be done," she said. "I enjoyed the school
because I can see more of an improvement over there. I went there hesistantly,
and yet I think I've given to so many people that it's helped me to see there
is a need to encourage people. If you can't do it in the community, there's
nowhere else to do it."
That need to encourage others can be traced back to her roots as a teenager
thrust into guardianship too soon. "Everything that I've done to encourage
others is because someone had encouraged me earlier," she said. "I'm
doing what I think could help someone else. ... If anybody had told me that
I would have lived this long and really helped as many people as I have, I would
have doubted it."
Though slowed slightly by advancing age, Sledd is still active. She plans
to paint the shed behind her house this week and tend to her flowers. "Life
is too beautiful to be concerned with the little problems that we have that
we cannot solve," she said. "I'm happy and thankful that I have a
house that I'm able to take care of. I get up in the morning, and it's a blessing
to be able to get up. I'm blessed that I'm able to live in my own home.
The Paducah Sun
June 11, 2003
Training program at college will proceed with plans and not wait
West Kentucky Community and Technical College will proceed with plans for a
historic preservation training program with or without the former McCracken
County school board office on Bleich Road.
"There are many facilities and buildings in the area that people want
to see restored," college President Barbara Veazey said, noting that she
is negotiating a joint program with the University of Kentucky. "... But
I do feel a responsibility to get everyone back together and see where we stand
(concerning the Bleich Road buildings). We do believe we have to proceed with
our plans for the program, but we cannot not address the issue of that property."
County school board Chairman Neil Archer said the board is still open to discuss
"where we stand and get some sort of confirmation" that the nearly
century-old Bleich Road property is still being considered as a preservation
arts lab.
"We're not bulldozer-happy," Archer said of the district's nearly
seven-month delay in demolishing the buildings. "We want to see the situation
resolved, but it's not an issue affecting our core mission."
Dennis Domer, director of the University of Kentucky's historic preservation
program, said the Paducah venture is in the "very early exploratory stages."
Veazey said the schools are still discussing curriculum issues, such as whether
it's best to teach by semester or in seminar form.
Domer, who visited the buildings last month, said the students' training would
focus on the conservation of old building materials, "understanding the
physical and chemical changes the materials are going through and decide how
to treat them," Domer said, noting there is a great need for people with
that type of training.
The school board announced plans to raze the dilapidated "alms house"
buildings in October because of insurance liability. District director of buildings
and grounds Darrell Sullivan has said it would take up to $250,000 just to stabilize
the buildings and $1 million in renovations to make them suitable for renters.
In November, the board deferred action on demolition bids while Paducah Main
Street Director and Growth, Inc. board member Anne Gryczon worked with WKCTC
officials to establish a historic preservation program. The proposal involved
the college offering preservation courses, using the Bleich Road property as
a learning lab. When the complex is restored, it would continue to serve as
classroom space.
Board members originally asked to see project plans within 30 to 60 days.
Gryczon was dismissed by Paducah Main Street in May and has not been involved
in the planning since then, Veazey said, which has slowed the process considerably.
"She was the one who got us all together," Veazey said. "We're
at a loss as to what we're supposed to do now."
Although the curriculum and alms house issues are being handled separately,
Veazey said it could take years before the preservation classes are ready for
students. She noted that the state's strained finances make it impossible for
WKCTC to pay start-up costs, such as renovations to the Bleich Road buildings.
"The main requirement is that this is a program of high quality,"
she said. "We're going to look at what we need for personnel and equipment
and see what grant opportunities are out there. This is not something we can
do overnight."
The Paducah Sun
June 9, 2003
Business and People
Seven faculty members at West Kentucky Community and Technical College were
recently promoted to professor.
They are Paducah residents Peggy Block, physical therapy assistant; Jo Ann
Knapp, business and office technology; Joe Mahoney, mathematics; Deborah Smith,
radiography; Alice Vaughn, diagnostic medical sonography; Hickory resident Mark
Young, allied health care; and Brookport, Ill., resident Scott Garrett, history.
Promoted to associate professor: Gary Goodaker of Princeton, mathematics; Kay
Jetton of Mayfield, barbering; Tammy Potter of Paducah, information technology;
and Norman Wurgler of Almo, music.
New assistant professors: Jennifer Miller of Metropolis, Ill., dental assisting;
Jason Tyler, mathematics; and Joseph Gar, biology.
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