THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501250170
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 159 lines
PEGGY S. WADE knows about guardian angels, though she has never seen one.
But Wade, director of P.D. Pruden Vo-Tech Center, is convinced her daughter, Pam, saw angels last September just before she died of cancer 10 days before she would have turned 25. Pam, who was mentally retarded, whispered to her mother that angels were coming to her.
``It was very moving to us to know that she saw angels,'' said Wade, who believes the family's faith has helped them cope with Pam's death.
Now, she has decided to collect dark-haired angels in Pam's memory.
``Most people think of angels with blond hair and blue eyes,'' she said. ``But my daughter had dark hair.''
Wade also wouldn't discount the possibility of guardian angels watching over her as she has juggled responsibilities of family and career.
Tonight she is being honored by the Chamber of Commerce with this year's Athena award for professional excellence. And yet, her job is third in line after God and family.
``I do like to think I have my priorities in order,'' she said recently after learning she had been selected for the award. ``I do put God first, my family second and my job third. I can't say I always succeed, but I do try.''
But her faith in God and her commitment to family are the core of her being, even at work, where her values are apparent in her daily activities.
``She is in the business she should be in,'' said the Rev. Charles Thompson, her pastor at First Baptist Church, Main Street. ``She is not only loving in her own life, she's carried it over in her work.''
The Athena award, given annually by the Suffolk chapter of the Chamber of Commerce of South Hampton Roads, personifies the highest level of excellence.
``She has attained honor in who she is,'' Thompson said. ``Her being has been translated into her doing.''
The devotion she and her husband, Charles, showed to their daughter is an ``inspiration to the whole world,'' Thompson said. ``I've seen very few parents of a mentally retarded child treat that child with the dignity and respect that Peggy and Charles treated her.''
Their compassion, Thompson said, is ``an outgrowth of their deep faith in God and belief that God doesn't make any mistakes.''
Last fall Wade helped design banners for each of the four weeks of Advent, the season leading up to Christmas, for her church. She found pictures depicting love, joy, peace and hope, then scanned them into her computer.
She and Charles considered donating a banner in Pam's memory.
``Charles said, `Either joy or love' because they reminded him most of Pam,'' she said.
When she told him the joy banner had an angel on it, he picked that one.
Pam had brought joy to their lives, Wade said.
``I feel sorry for anybody who hasn't had an opportunity to love a person with mental retardation,'' she said. ``That was a blessing. Pam was one of the happiest people I've ever known.''
She never felt sorry for herself but insists that she only did what any other caring parent would do.
``I delighted in every day of her life,'' she said. ``I didn't do anything any other loving parent wouldn't have done.''
Her husband has always been her partner and helper.
``We've always worked together on problems,'' she said, as her office phone rang and Charles called, as usual, on his way home from his work as a meat cutter at the Winn Dixie grocery store in Franklin.
``We appreciate what we have to fight for,'' she said. ``We struggled and had to hang together to make ends meet.''
They had married young after both had dropped out of college, and Charles was sent to Vietnam with the Army two months before Pam was born. Peggy Wade later returned to Madison College, now James Madison University, and completed a home economics degree so she could teach.
The family moved to Suffolk in 1975 and she started teaching commercial foods, now culinary arts, at Pruden. In 1980, she became assistant director three months after their son, Chuck, was born and while she was completing a master's degree at Old Dominion University.
She has also tried to spend time in activities with Chuck, now 14. He was especially devoted to his older sister, as well.
When Chuck announced he wanted to play the saxophone, his mother first tried to convince him to choose another instrument - until she heard a saxophonist play ``Amazing Grace'' for a church program.
``It was so pretty I almost floated up through the ceiling,'' Wade said.
She went home and told Chuck, ``If you want to play the sax, I'll buy you a sax and I'll pay for the lessons. But you have to learn to play `Amazing Grace' and play it on demand for me for the rest of my life.''
Soon after he started lessons, she was away at a conference and called home, as usual, to ``check on everybody and say `good night,' '' she said. Over the phone, Chuck played a rather squeaky rendition of the gospel tune by ear.
As with her own children, the students at P.D. Pruden are special to her.
``Everything that we do, wherever I'm doing it, is for them,'' she said.
Named director in 1984, she sometimes misses the interaction with the students in the classroom.
``But I think she makes sure she has contact with them,'' said Judy Liles, coordinator of vocational and adult education for Suffolk City Schools. ``She tries to let them know she cares and wants the best for them at P.D. Pruden.''
She follows through with any problem, question or concern the students have, said Liles, who has worked closely with her for a number of years.
V. Scott Weatherford, Pruden's principal of adult education, agreed.
``She does a fantastic job,'' Weatherford said. ``She'll listen to the people who work for her. She's not an autocrat.''
Her best quality, Weatherford said, is her fairness.
``Her fairness, well, and her open-mindedness and her patience,'' he said. ``She's an extremely, extremely good person to work for.''
Wade believes that helping students make wise choices is one of the most important parts of her job. She enjoys working with teenagers. She teaches ninth- and tenth-grade girls in Sunday school. And she's been a Cub Scout leader and on the Colonial Trails district committee for the Boy Scouts of America, helping get an Explorers unit started in Suffolk and obtain funding for the Learning for Life program.
She has also been on the business and education committees of the chambers of commerce in Suffolk and Smithfield-Isle of Wight County.
Harry L. Cross III, who worked with her in the Suffolk chamber, nominated her for the Athena award.
``She very quietly and efficiently does an extraordinary amount of good work for an extraordinary number of people,'' Cross said.
But one of her pet projects has been her work with the Tri-County Association for Retarded Citizens, which disbanded a few years ago, and the recently formed Tri-County Trust for Retarded Citizens.
``I've always had a special affection for people with handicaps,'' she said.
But handling all her responsibilities is a juggling act.
``She wears herself out every day,'' Charles Wade said. ``She goes full tilt till it's time to relax, then she relaxes. Just like she said, it's God, family, work and whatever else falls behind that. She's great with me and my son.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color cover photo
Peggy Wade is this year's Athena award winner. People who know her
know there are plenty of reasons.]
Staff and cover photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
A portrait of her children brings a big smile to Peggy Wade's face.
The director of P.D. Pruden Vo-Tech Center lost her daughter, Pam,
to cancer.
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Wade takes time to talk with two students at the Vo-Tech Center.
``She tries to let them know she cares . . . '' says Judy Liles,
vocational education coordinator for Suffolk City Schools.
Graphic
THE ATHENA AWARD
The Athena award is presented annually by the Suffolk division of
the South Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce to a woman who has
distinquished herself in career and community service.
The award is sponsored by Duke
Chevrolet-Geo-Oldsmobile-Pontiac-Buick-Cadillac-GMC.
Past Athena winners are Joyce Trump, Fan Panton, Lula Holland,
Gail Pruden, Ruby Walden, Patricia Williams and Dr. Margaret Reid.
Graphic
PEGGY WADE IS ...
[Quotes from people who know Peggy Wade. For copy of complete text,
see microfilm.<] by CNB