By RAY WYCHE
Staff Writer

Four employees of Southeastern Community College will no longer be working with the institution after July 31, and when the last of the four walks out, they will be leaving behind 130 years of valuable service.

Jean Wooten, administrative assistant in the SCC Foundation office, worked the last day of her 28-year stay at the college on April 30. Brenda Stansbury, who served as administrative assistant to three presidents of the college for 34 years, will call it quits on July 1.

Diane Tison ends a 34-year term with the continuing education division on July 31, and Julie Stocks, vice president of SCC for student development services, will end her 34-year tenure on the same day.

The first of the four to retire—and the one with the earliest connection to the college—is Wooten who lives in the Western Prong community.

“My association with the college began in 1965 in the old Chadbourn High School building,” she says. Southeastern took in its first students and classes were held in the old Chadbourn public school building which had been vacant since Chadbourn High School was one of four public high schools that were consolidated into West Columbus High School in 1965.

Wooten enrolled as a freshman at the new institution in its first year of existence and after one year went to work in the private sector. She returned to SCC in 1979 as an employee and student, later receiving her associate degree. Her first six years of employment at the college were in continuing education and in 1985 she went to work for the Foundation, a component of the college that raises funds to cover college-related expenses, including numerous scholarships, not funded from state or local government sources.

“When I started in 1985, it (the Foundation) was under Annette Powell’s leadership,” Wooten said. “Sue (Hawks) is the fifth director of the Foundation.”

Wooten’s duties with the foundation go far beyond the job description of most clerical positions.

“You’ve got to be able to multi-task,” Wooten says of her former job. “It’s important being on a team; one can’t do without others.”

The job includes keeping financial records up-to-date and being prepared for an audit by a professional non-college firm, depositing monetary gifts to the Foundation (all charitable gifts go the Foundation), helping keep track of the $2.5 million the Foundation has in investments from which benefits are paid, dispensing funds as directed by the 36 directors of the Foundation, and in general presenting a good picture of the college to the public.

“You’ve got to be up all the time; you never know when a donor is going to walk through that front door.”

Since the foundation dispenses considerable funds to projects and programs that benefit the community as well as the college, a big part of Wooten’s duties involved helping plan the annual fund drives.

“The purpose of the Foundation is to raise funds, and we can’t forget the faculty and staff; they are great contributors to the fund,” she says.

There are many other hats that Wooten wore during her 22 years handling day-to-day tasks of the Foundation. She helped arrange and was always present at Foundation dinners to mark kick-offs of annual fund drives, and at the Foundation banquets honoring people who have made outstanding contributions to the college and community. She helped arrange the Performing Art Series in which outstanding figures in music and drama present programs at the college, thanks in part to Foundation funding.

She had a hand in some of the innovative contributions made by the Foundation, such as no-interest loans to faculty members to use for personal computer purchases, and faculty and staff innovative projects and professional development programs.

Concert tours by the college choir are funded in large part by Foundation funds and it was Wooten’s job to help arrange the trips.

“I’ve done every golf tournament,” she says of a popular fundraising activity sponsored by the Foundation.

“Every day we get some kind of gift, like memorial gifts. It’s a wonderful way to remember loved ones,” she says.

It was one of Wooten’s many jobs to deposit, acknowledge and ensure that the gifts went for the designated purposes.

Scholarships are the big thing with the Foundation, and it was Wooten’s job to arrange for the funds to go to the college’s financial aid office.

“Most scholarships come through the Foundation,” she says. “So many people are using scholarships to remember loved ones. All scholarship money comes through this office. Students are the ones we serve.”

In short, the Foundation makes the college a more attractive entity to the community at large, an accomplishment Wooten takes pride in by helping bring the many benefits of the institution to the citizens and to SCC.

“Southeastern has had such an impact on this area. It’s the best thing ever to happen to Columbus County,” she says.

What will Wooten do with her free time, now that she no longer wears the many hats she wore for the past 22 years?

“Actually, for the first month I’m going to take it easy. I’m an avid gardener – not vegetables – and I have three dogs and four cats. I may look for part-time work. I’ve already taken the substitute teacher’s test. And I want to do a little bit of traveling.

“I want a job that requires no thinking,” she says in a joking manner.

Life in her Western Prong home with just her pets will be far different from the hustle-bustle of the Foundation offices.

“I have mixed emotions about leaving here – the friends, the people I see every day. It’s going to be a big adjustment. But I have loved every minute of it, the public contacts, the directors. It has been fantastic.”

Editor’s note: profiles of the other three retirees will be published at later dates.