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Sunday, Oct. 11, 2009

Why stay home when you’re already there?

Virginia Cowsert is convinced she was born with “the gift of energy.”

Which may help explain why she is still teaching preschool at Northminster Presbyterian at the age of 76.

Batteries are included. She is the Energizer Granny.

Virginia is now in her 39th year as director of one of the city’s first church preschools.

She has been asked the obvious “retirement” question so often someone suggested hanging a sign around her neck.

Instead, she had a T-shirt made that reads: “YES, I’M STILL HERE.’’

She has administered more big hugs and wiped more tiny noses than anyone this side of Wimbish Road.

If she had a nickel for every shoestring she has tied, she would be eating caviar on a yacht somewhere.

Of course, wealth isn’t always measured in money.

“I like to watch them grow, like little flowers blooming,” she said. “That’s the joy of it for me. It has helped me stay young.”

She has four children of her own, and now six grandchildren. But she has also been a Mother Hen to thousands of Macon children.

A generation has turned over since she first took the reins in 1970. She has watched a virtual time capsule gathered and stored.

Three of her former students — Donna Shuford, Judy Gatins and Will Davidson — have brought their own children back to be taught and nurtured by Miss Virginia. The school’s “alumni” are always invited to the annual Christmas program, where they are recognized at the end.

She grew up in Starkville, Miss., and attended Mississippi State College for Women (now Mississippi University for Women), the nation’s first public women’s college.

She taught school in Jackson and married her husband, Bill, in 1955. Bill was in the insurance business and moved the family to Macon in 1964 to work for the Georgia Farm Bureau.

The Cowserts became charter members of Northminster Presbyterian. Then, in February 1970, Virginia’s world was turned upside down. Bill died of a heart attack, leaving her a young widow with four children between the ages of 2 and 13.

A few months later, members of an education committee at the church approached her about becoming a teacher in the preschool. At the time, the program was struggling with low enrollment and trying to keep its doors open.

After prayerful consideration, she took the job and has been there ever since.

Her philosophy is simple: “Childhood is a journey, not a race.” She provides them with a foundation. She lets them run, skip and play. She teaches them manners and social skills. She pours juice and spreads love.

You won’t find computers or much of anything else that needs to be plugged in. Printers come equipped with 10 fingers. Almost every sign on a door or wall is handwritten.

“She has that ‘teacher font,’ the one of hand-cut letters for the bulletin board,” said the Rev. C. Jarred Hammet Jr., pastor at Northminster. “Her font even comes with a smell — Mark-a-Lot black — that comes from whipping out posters on large pieces of construction paper.”

Maybe one day Virginia will lay those markers down. But, for now, there is still energy to be harnessed.

Why stay at home when you’re already are home?

Reach Gris at 744-4275 or gris@macon.com.