Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 3, 1995 TAG: 9506060060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LISA APPLEGATE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Angela Davis says her most serious responsibility also has been her biggest inspiration.
"When I had my son, I realized that he's going to depend on me for the rest of my life, so I had better start working on my future."
Davis, who graduates tonight from Narrows High School, barely held a C average two years ago. Now, she's got a 3.1 grade-point average - higher than a B.
But it hasn't been easy. Juggling the care of her 18-month-old son, Ryan, and a part-time job hasn't left much time for studying.
But she does have time to worry - about her husband, Walter Randall Davis.
Davis, 20, has been in a Florida jail since last fall, awaiting trial on a murder charge. He was arrested in Giles County on Oct. 5, accused of killing a man two weeks earlier in Putnam County, Fla.
Angela Davis, 18, doesn't like to talk about the incident, but said Ryan misses his father. "He'll see a picture of his daddy and hug it and won't let it go," she said.
Angela spent her childhood in Giles County. She moved to Palatka, Fla., after the sixth grade, when her father found a better job.
She was a sophomore in high school when she met Randall. She didn't care much about school, she says. Then she got pregnant.
"I switched to another school where they had a nursery and parenting classes for teen mothers," she said. "By the end of my junior year, I was runner-up for top academic performance at my school."
Angela said she couldn't have continued to raise her grades this year without help from her family.
She lives in a mobile home her grandmother, Florence Via, supplied in Rich Creek. Via takes care of Ryan when Davis works her part-time job at the Burger Boy restaurant.
She gets some assistance from Aid to Families with Dependent Children, but says she refuses to become dependent on the state's welfare system.
"I'm determined not to get caught in that cycle. I got the job, even though I don't earn enough to get totally off AFDC. It's a start," she said. Guidance counselor Dave Robertson has helped Davis along the way, but concedes she's done most of the work herself.
"Rather than folding in from all this and going down the tubes, she's decided to make something of herself," he said.
Davis will begin classes at New River Community College in August and she's hoping to transfer to Radford University in two years.
She loves her English class, taught by Bill Gentry; and Davis says she might become a teacher or a journalist.
An aspiring poet, Davis already has had two poems published in The National Library of Poetry in Maryland. Most of her poetry, like the poem titled "The Wooden Doll," explores the the more painful aspects of life: "A heart of stone/An ice cold glare,/A chill to your bone,/But I don't care."
"Mr. Gentry teases me because my favorite poet is Edgar Allen Poe," she said.
Her hopes reach beyond her own career to her son's life. She already has purchased one $500 savings bond for Ryan and plans to buy another one soon.
"I expect him to get good grades and go on to college. ... I don't think that's unreasonable," she said.
"I don't want him to make the same mistakes I made in my first two years of high school."
NARROWS HIGH SCHOOL CLASS OF 1995
Number of graduates: 59
College: 40
Military: 2
Workforce: 17
Valedictorian: Brian Ballard
Salutorian: Scott Stafford
by CNB