CORNING – “Thanks for giving us 32 years of your life.” That’s what one scholar wrote in a e-book offered to Janice “Jan” Norris when she retired from Southern Native Colleges in 2000.
Richard Norris retains that tribute to his spouse shut by – and is writing the following chapter in Jan’s story of giving to Southern Perry County college students. He not too long ago created a scholarship honoring her legacy and continues what they as a pair began 55 years in the past.
“Jan and I got here right here with the acknowledged settlement we might keep for 3 or 4 years after which we’d transfer on,” Richard recalled of their 1968 arrival in Southeast Ohio. “And with a acknowledged function: to broaden the scholars’ horizons and attempt to expose them to an even bigger world, wealthy in expertise and wonder. For some college students rising up right here, their eyes don’t attain anyplace close to the horizon of what could be.”
The Janice E. Norris Memorial Scholarship, a fund throughout the Southern Perry County Educational Endowment Fund and created via the Basis for Appalachian Ohio, will assist the postsecondary academic pursuits of Southern Perry County college students, who Jan and Richard taught for 32 years.
“This scholarship is a method to honor what Jan had performed for these children and to assist the youngsters,” Richard mentioned. “And it goes again to broadening horizons. All training and all journey broaden. The necessity for the scholars as I knew them, and I feel it’s nonetheless there, was to see the world in an even bigger body.”
He hopes the scholarship will assist open the doorways to postsecondary training – be it a two- or four-year diploma or expert workforce coaching – for college students in want, a lot because it did for Jan, who benefited from a Toledo Academics Affiliation Scholarship. The scholarship – the one one provided that 12 months – paid for a full 4 years of faculty, permitting Jan to take care of her grandmother, who was disabled from a stroke, and commit herself to her research. Jan graduated from the College of Toledo with honors as one of many first two training majors enrolled within the college’s Honors Faculty.
“I hope that when college students obtain this scholarship that it sparks a dialogue of the form of trainer that Jan was, that they keep in mind who she was,” Richard mentioned.
Richard additionally hopes these reminiscences and this scholarship will probably be a catalyst for others to assist college students in the neighborhood.
“Maybe this can encourage any person to do one thing parallel or possibly a former scholar of mine or Jan’s may say, ‘I appreciated Mrs. Norris and I’ll put $10 into the scholarship fund,’” Richard mentioned. “Perhaps we are able to begin a bit of development.”
To assist the Janice E. Norris Memorial Scholarship, go to tinyurl.com/NorrisScholarship. For data on how one can assist create academic alternatives for college students in Appalachian Ohio, go to AppalachianOhio.org or contact FAO at information@ffao.org or 740-753-1111.
Info supplied by Basis for Appalachian Ohio.
