THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508040203
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 22 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
At 17, Jill Taylor Flood had a 1-year-old son, no high school diploma, no husband and a job as an aide at a nursing home.
``I made less than minimum wage,'' Flood told an audience at Green Run High School. ``I rode the bus to work. There was money for rent and basics, food for my son. That was it. I became used to living on $50 a week.''
Today, Dr. Jill Taylor Flood is a medical doctor with a specialty in obstetrics and gynecology. She is on the faculty at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine and is a staff physician at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and Virginia Beach General. She also has her own Beach Center for Infertility on First Colonial Road.
How did she turn her life around? That was the substance of Flood's message to the assemblage at Green Run. The occasion was the 1995 General Equivalency Development recognition ceremony, graduation for 34 Adult Learning Center students who had not completed requirements for their high school diplomas. Until Thursday night, July 27.
``You may look at me tonight, look at my demeanor and appearance, hear the title `doctor' and assume that we have nothing in common,'' said Flood in her opening remarks.
She then proceeded to tell the story of her beginnings, a story of a broken home, family alcoholism and seeming dead ends. After leaving high school to get out of the house, Flood decided to become a wife, mother and homemaker. Her fascination with the adult world proved short-lived. She left a physically abusive relationship after a year and started out on her own.
Though she didn't know it at the time, Flood did make one decision that would pave the way for belated advancement. She took and passed a GED test in December 1969.
``I didn't think it was like a real high school graduation,'' she said.
When Flood moved to Norfolk at 18, she passed a test to become a medical secretary, the first job that meant something to her. She was adept, a fast learner. She had entertained notions of becoming a medical doctor from the age of 6. She talked to the admissions office at Old Dominion University and took her Scholastic Aptitude Test.
``I finally found out my GED was OK - after five years,'' she said. Still, the admissions counselors at ODU weren't optimistic about Flood's dreams of medicine as a career.
``They told me maybe that was an unrealistic expectation. I would probably be a `C' student,'' she said.
To make a long, hard trudge to success a short story, Flood made straight A's and was accepted at Eastern Virginia Medical School in 1978. She left in 1982 with the initials M.D. behind her name.
``You have two choices: you can allow roadblocks to stop you or you can go over them,'' she told the graduates.
Mary Frances Swoope knows about roadblocks and interrupted education. She quit high school in the 10th grade 40 years ago. Swoope made a heart-rending speech about her fight to survive and educate herself. In 1980, her husband suffered a heart attack; in 1992, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy.
``I was anxious about going back to school. I told myself I would be surrounded by young kids who were more familiar with school,'' said Swoope, who received a standing ovation at the conclusion of the speech and again when she received her diploma.
David Hicks found Swoope an inspirational classmate. Hicks left Cox High School in 10th grade in 1992.
``I didn't think I needed school,'' said Hicks. ``I was bored with it and didn't like getting up so early.''
He reassessed his future and discovered a gap, the lack of a high school diploma. He entered the Adult Learning Center on Virginia Beach Boulevard in February for the four-month course.
``I didn't miss a day of class this time,'' he said. ``Hearing the doctor and Frances made me realize that a GED is not a second-rate thing. Now I feel good about it.''
Hicks plans to begin training to become a firefighter. He also will attend real estate school in January.
GED hopefuls attend classes five days a week for three hours, preparing for the 7 1/2-hour test. The equivalency exam covers five areas: writing, social studies, science, literature and the arts, and math. MEMO: For more information, visit or call the Adult Learning Center, 4160
Virginia Beach Blvd., 473-5091.
ILLUSTRATION: Photos by GARY EDWARDS
ABOVE: Dr. Jill Flood, who earned a GED, then went on to run her own
infertility clinic, speaks with Dr. Michael LaBouve, provost of
TCC/Virginia Beach.
LEFT: Mary Frances Swoope received her GED this year, 40 years after
dropping out of high school in the 10th grade.
by CNB