THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, May 15, 1995 TAG: 9505130033
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VANEE VINES, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 116 lines
SOME PEOPLE WON'T make any kind of move without a carefully mapped out plan. Some people wing it - propelled by their faith that everything will turn out all right.
Angela Goode, a 37-year-old single parent and former shipyard worker, leans toward the latter category.
She has struggled to patch together a life in recent years but, as she knew He would, ``God has made a way.''
Today is Goode's day in the spotlight. She can be seen on this afternoon's Montel Williams Show (Channel 10 at 4), learning for the first time that she was among the winners of United Negro College Fund scholarships. Her take: $10,000.
She'll use most of it to pay this year's tuition and other expenses - overdue bills she's ducked since school started.
Call it amazing grace, good luck or the power of positive thinking. Goode, now studying business administration and secondary education at St. Paul's College in Lawrenceville, calls it a blessing. And in her view, the single most common learning disability is fear.
``Every time I looked down at my son, I knew that something was going to work out,'' she said, referring to her desperate search for scholarships. ``I knew I was doing it for him. If you're a strong believer, they say the Lord might not be there all the time. But He's always on time.''
Today's Montel show is centered on ``good news surprises,'' and college fund scholarship winners are among the guests. Representatives from the talk show and the UNCF convinced students to make a special appearance. However, students thought they would discuss college costs, Goode said, smiling.
It took nine years to work her way up to third-class handyman with Newport News Shipbuilding. She called it quits in 1988. The work, she said, wasn't satisfying and ``I just felt like I wasn't shipyard material.''
Moreover, she wanted ``a well-paying career, not just a job.'' She realized she had to return to school full time - even if it meant being one of the oldest students in class and holding down low-paying jobs on the side.
The next step: Commonwealth College, where her dream to manage an elite hotel was born.
``I committed myself to my studies and to my books,'' she said one recent afternoon from her family's Brighton home, where she and her son live when they're not in Lawrenceville. ``I didn't value my education when I was in high school. I've learned that it pays to go to school and do your work and be the best that you can be. You can achieve and do anything you want if you have self-determination.''
Goode, a powerfully built woman with a ready smile, was the first in her family to attend college. She grew up poor, watching her mother single-handedly raise nine of her own children plus three nieces after their mother died.
Dreams, she said, had been deferred long enough.
Despite the string of A grades at Commonwealth, things didn't go as planned after graduation. First, she didn't land the type of position she wanted in the hotel-management industry. The college offered her a job as bookstore manager. Two years later, she was laid off.
Part-time, turned full-time, wages from shampooing hair at a local beauty salon barely covered the bills. Later, child support eased the financial strain, but only a little, Goode said. A subsequent position as an elementary school teacher's aide was exciting, but not exactly her calling.
Last year, after hearing about St. Paul's program for single parents and their children, she took perhaps the biggest leap of all. She applied, gained admittance and, with 2-year-old Colin in tow, made her way to school.
She had earned an associate's degree. Still, she wanted the leg up that a bachelor's can provide. She didn't reach that decision overnight, however. Professional black women she befriended at Commonwealth, the salon and in the school district had hounded her to continue her studies.
``I felt she was kind of wasting her talent by not going back to school to further her education,'' said Barbara Elliott, a fifth-grade teacher at Brighton Elementary, where Goode worked before heading to St. Paul's last summer. ``Anything she was asked to do, she could get it done and it was done well. She's smart, creative and friendly. She was really good with kids.''
One problem: She was broke. And she didn't have much of a plan for paying tuition, although her church gave her some money for books first semester and another charitable organization covered her books this semester.
``She really began to worry in January,'' said Samson O. Oshunkentan, Goode's adviser and head of the college's business administration and education department. ``She came in here about every day. Whenever I came across some kind of scholarship, I told her.''
Oshunkentan learned about the $10,000 scholarship less than a week before the deadline. He urged Goode to apply, and he paid for her application to be delivered overnight.
``Angela's always positive. She has confidence in herself and thinks that God has a plan for her,'' he said. But, recalling her frantic search for aid at the beginning of this semester, he couldn't help but chuckle.
``She's just so good,'' he said. ``She's in a club that teaches free-enterprise principles. One day, she had won a big stuffed dog at Kings Dominion. She gave it to the club and they had a raffle and raised about $200 for the club. She did it, and she didn't have to. I don't think she had $5 in the bank!''
Goode is still awaiting news from other scholarship-granting organizations. Although she doesn't plan to graduate until 1997, she's already talking about graduate school. She's also eyeing four-star hotels.
``I will prove that it can be done: You can complete your high school education, take jobs, then go back to school and compete with the younger generation,'' she said. ``Watch, I think I'll make history.'' ILLUSTRATION: LAWRENCE JACKSON/Staff
Angela Goode shown with her 2-year-old son, Colin, will receive her
scholarship on "The Montel Williams Show," today at 4 p.m.
by CNB