Remembering Mom: Lola Hunter

November 2023 was supposed to be a fun family month. Daughter came down for two weeks to encompass celebrating her mother's birthday and to celebrate the holiday and son and daughter in law were to join all of us in the holiday celebration as well. Well those things did happen but for me it was not the joyful moment I envisioned. 

My mom died November 13, 2023.

It's really hard when both parents are gone. When your beautiful mom leaves this journey, it is hard anyway. Making it a double-whammy when there's no parent left to connect to your past. I moved along rudderless for days afterwards. I enjoyed moments the best I could. 

What made it harder for me was that my mom and I did not connect on the same level as my dad and I. I think that is true with any child, there are different connections with either parent. For mom and me, it was a lot of support. She might not have always understood everything I was doing, or what I was researching, but she always supported me. She was the only one in my family of five who did not graduate from college, but she was so smart about things that we encounter in life. That silent, personal touch can go by unnoticed in life until it's no longer there. Then there's the discovery of a void from it not being there.

Before I present the text of my remarks at mom's burial service, there are two things that I remember and connect to with so much emotional attachment.

Mom told me while she was shopping for shoes for me that she wanted to buy shoes for each of us. Her childhood was really really hard. Born in the heart of the Great Depression and Dust Storms, mom learned to save and not spend. She said that shoes were in her family a scarcity. She wore shoes that were worn out, did not fit her feet, just to have something to wear to school. I was in middle school when I heard this, but I was still aware enough to feel how hard that statement was to make for her. It made me feel very grateful for what I had.

Mom was a creative person. She could draw, she could paint.  She could make a pattern out of drawing and bring it to fruition into a painting. A creative person feels a lot more and what is affecting them.  Creativity was an outlet from that. I am grateful for Mom showing me without even knowing it that creativity is a release point along this journey in life.

One of my favorite pictures of mom and me. Picture was from 1985 - I still in my permed hair and still skinny.

 I read the following remarks at mom's burial service. 

Our mother died on Monday morning.

November 13, 2023.

Which would have been our Dad's 90th birthday. Birth and Death. For us, we will remember a birth and death on the same day. 

Our parents in November 1965 had their birthdays connected to death. In 1965, Dad's dad, or our grandfather Hunter, died on my mom's birthday; and five days later, my Mom's dad, or our grandfather Taylor, died on my Dad's birthday.

November birthdays for our parents were never the same again.

My mom and dad lived together in a long, loving marriage -- their lives intertwined with faith, hope, and love. That faith, hope, and love helped my mom transition effortlessly to be a preacher's wife. She connected with church members with her smile that greeted you before the words hello. She connected by being the same person she always was.

Intertwined faith, hope, and love.

Even though each one of her children left home for college and on our life journeys, she always supported us -- made sure we received our birthday cards each year -- and loved us no matter where we were. 

Our mom loved to be creative--painting, coloring, and she loved to draw and sketch. 

We are here today to celebrate her life -- a life filled with love, joy, and happiness -- and that she loved us so much, had so much hope for us, and always had faith in us.

Love you Mom

TNPTA 2023 Student Awards Ceremony

My last official event as Tennessee PTA president was the Student Awards Ceremony held on June 3rd at the Brentwood Public Library. The library in Brentwood is just a beautiful, inviting building. Nonprofits can rent the huge meeting room.

Meeting me there from the board of directors were Vice President Larry Davis -- it was his show and he arranged all of the things necessary for it to happen -- Bala Ramanchandran over the reflections arts, Charles Everett, treasurer, and our office administrator, Tonya Cambre. And G came along too!

We had a great turnout of over 100+ people! Our emcee drove from Knoxville to present: Mike Hammond. This was not his first time emceeing our student awards ceremony!

I enjoy speaking in front of large crowds so I was in my moment!  

I was so pleased that Charles Everett, who also served as council president for the United Shelby County Council, led the way to have our long-time Reflection Chair, Bala Ramachandran, to receive a life time achievement award.  It has long been my long time held personal belief that anyone elected to or currently serving on the Executive Committee should be a life time achievement award recipient from the state if their local unit or council unit was not going to present the honor. I also believe that if a board member, especially one after 4 years, did not have one should get one too. Thankfully, the Council stepped up!

And wow was Bala surprised! It was so good to see this award given to Bala.

The ceremony was well received. Our backdrop was in heavy use by parents and caregivers!  I was very pleased that this was my last event -- an event celebrating our children and youth across the state of Tennessee!

Storage Unit Moving Day May 2023

 The final steps of moving Tennessee PTA items from Nashville to Knoxville happened in May. I met Dana Price at Northgate Mall to close down the Post Office box and to collect items for the state office administrator.  On May 6, G and I made a quick trip to Knoxville and back by dropping off more stuff collected from Dana and from my home office. These were things necessary for the office administrator to prepare for the Student Awards Ceremony less than a month away in Brentwood.

I sat in the president's chair but no desk. The former president's desk is now the office administrator desk.

And I sat at the conference table in the new state office. Turned out to be a good picture!

Then what I dubbed as the triangle trip began on May 10th. In the 36 hours period from the afternoon of May 10th to May 11th, I traveled from Chattanooga to Franklin, then to downtown Nashville, and the next morning from Nashville to Knoxville and back to Chattanooga. This also required taking vacation time from work. I have no idea how much vacation time I used over the last 4 years as president-elect and president for Tennessee PTA but it was a lot!

The triangle trip was moving from one storage unit in Nashville, divide the content, and move some stuff into another storage unit in Knoxville and the remaining content into the Knoxville state office. Whew - that was a lot of planning, preparation, and everything working just right.

Once again, Two Men and Truck Company was hired to move stuff. They moved all of the office content from the state office in Nashville to the state office in Knoxville during the month of March. Now we would use them again to move the storage unit stuff out of Nashville.

I left work in Chattanooga at 1 pm Eastern, noon Nashville time and headed to Franklin, TN. Earlier I had contacted the buyer, then the buyer's property manager, and then connected the property manager to past state president Kim Henderson all in order to pick up the lettering that we had on the exterior wall of the Nashville office. My first stop would be at Kim's house to pick up the box of lettering. 

My next stop was downtown in the Gulch part of Nashville to start arranging the storage unit. I planned and sketched out on paper what I wanted and started the process. But I had no food since previous evening and I was starving, so I decided to return early tomorrow morning before the moving truck arrived to finish the rest of the separation: stuff to storage unit and stuff to office.

I stayed at the nearby Hayes Street Hotel. A very different hotel and I am not going to return to it in the future. However the Las Palmas is attached to the hotel building next door and I would highly recommend their food!

The next day I was up and gone early. Luckily the streets connecting the hotel to the storage unit were not busy work commuting streets. I arrived a bit early for the opening of the gate, so I parked in the next door\s business parking lot. That business? The Larry Flynt Hustler Club!  Yep our storage unit was located next to the Hustler club on one side and the Greyhound terminal on the other side.

Once inside the compound -- security code to enter the lot, code to enter the unit--I took the lock off and closed the unit down at the office. I returned to the unit and finished my separation job from the day before. I finished before the moving crew got there -- right on time at 9 am. The separation job I did was so helpful as it speeded the process along -- the office content was loaded first to be unloaded last and the storage unit stuff was loaded last to be unloaded first. I saved Tennessee PTA a bunch of money by cutting down on the loading time.

The storage unit was almost evenly divided so one half went on first, the movers placed separation ropes, and then moved out the other half of the unit.

We both left at the same time but I could drive faster than the truck could so I was a few hours ahead at the Knoxville office waiting on them. When the movers arrived, everything worked out perfectly in no time! First the storage unit in Knoxville then to the state office.  A very successful trip!

And I placed the box of lettering in the president's office for the next president.

2023 Tennessee PTA (TNPTA) Annual Convention

 

The second annual convention during my term as state PTA president was a successful one. Everything organized from registration to detailed schedule - check. Executive Committee meeting completed night before-check. Board meeting completed - check. Set-up of venue for convention and registration and workshops completed - check. 

And the largest surprise to me -- I had scheduled three days of convention to get through business items, workshops, elections, installation, and more. We wrapped up in two days and gave everyone a Sunday off to rest up and travel back early.

We met at the Williamson County Public Safety Center for the weekend. This venue is outstanding and perfect for a convention with classrooms for workshops, a board room for the board meeting, an office for photocopying, and a huge large group seating with surround sound and monitors!  The only knock is that it was difficult to find: one had to travel down an alley from the main street to find the building sitting behind another building.

During the business meeting, we adopted four new resolutions. We approved several bylaw amendments. We elected officers and installed the incoming officers. 

We had workshops covering membership software, family engagement, and national standards for schools and families. We had a Q&A session by table led by a board member. 

We had an awards banquet for our units and for my farewell speech. The food was lousy for the banquet but we were fully refunded for it.

Taking a break during convention business.

The 2021-2023 Board of Directors

The voting delegates at the 2023 Annual Convention.

I was so pleased that G drove in on Friday afternoon. She helped with the Saturday lunch, attended the awards banquet and heard my farewell speech, and helped clean up the venue on Sunday morning!

I gave my farewell speech. It was tough not to get emotional but this board did a lot in two years! From the Gates Grant that drove so many good programming for us to the sale of the building. I was very touched by the board gift -- very very appreciative of this board!

Charles Scott and I have been on the state board since 2007!

Blessed to have so many men as PTA leaders!

Larry Davis. Larry served in all three vice president positions during his years of service to the board.

The last board meeting

2023 Tennessee Library Association (TNLA) Conference

Call me crazy but for some reason I went through the July 2022 - June 2023 fiscal year not president of one all-volunteer, membership-based, advocacy association.

No, I was president of two!

In hindsight, I should have stood down from the president-elect TNLA election the year before.  It was too much, way too much, for one person to handle and to process and to lead. But this was an opportunity to lead an association that was tied to my long-time professional career. Libraries needed advocacy more than ever with the constant attack on the profession from all corners. I thought it was a chance to use my advocacy knowledge and skill set to help out the association but it did not happen as I envisioned it would until the very last board meeting I chaired.

Major accomplishments included completing the logo and branding changes from TLA to TNLA, a statement about protecting librarians from censorship, approving two future advocacy events, and a very well-attended TNLA annual conference!

I got back from the Knoxville weekend on Sunday the 9th and was gone to Memphis on Monday the 10th. I stayed at the beautiful tower known as the Memphis Hilton. I had been here a few times before for past TNLA conferences and past TNPTA conventions. As an elite Hilton member, I was able to choose the option of being placed in the highest floor available. There is a beautiful moat surrounding the hotel tower.

I had my conference theme in mind way back in April of 2021 at my president-elect election and had my conference committee appointed and ready to go by May 2021. TNLA requires the president-elect to get the conference committee working two years in advance of the president's annual conference. I think that is just excellent structure to provide maximum planning.

My conference theme and my delegate card for my lanyard. The green square on my card meant that I was ok with hugs, talking/conversing, and not wearing a mask.

This conference had over 50 workshops! 50! And they were well-attended. The complete opposite of the Tennessee PTA annual convention that would be held the following week. We had almost 300 people attending the annual business meeting!  We had exhibitors hanging out in three merged ballrooms because there were so many. We had a huge turnout for the board meeting. Here is the 2022-2023 board of directors pictured below.

And pictures from the business meeting that was held the following day.

The TNLA Conference was awesome! It was so much fun, having a large conference committee planning to make things go so much better. It was a pleasure to serve this association to celebrate the stars at every library in Tennessee!

April 7 to 9 Trip to Knoxville

We made a weekend trip to Knoxville just a few days before I left for Memphis for the TNLA annual conference. This is a blended blog - I have it categorized as a PTA Trip because that's why we came but we packaged it with personal stuff as well.

We brought the office computer up for our new office administrator. This also meant that I no longer had to use my personal publisher on my work computer to create PTA certificates. Woo! We also brought up more office and PTA stuff that had been housed in my extra bedroom as temporary storage during the sale of the Nashville office building.

I sat in the president's office and in the president's chair, got to see the new arrangement of furniture. It was a good visit to the new Tennessee PTA office in Knoxville. Being a blended trip meant that PTA got this trip for free -- no reimbursements for travel, meals, or lodging! 

So we finished moving the stuff in and got myself acquainted with the office and with the potential storage unit.  That was it for the PTA side of things!

We checked into our hotel - the Crowne Plaza Knoxville Downtown. What a beautiful hotel!  And what did PTA care - they weren't paying for it! We were able to walk across the street and enjoy Market Square. We found some delicious food on the square at Myrtle's Chicken. If you are ever at the Square, check their chicken meals out!

When we got back, I worked on my laptop writing the podium book for two conventions. Can you believe I was state president for both the Tennessee Library Association and for the Tennessee Parent Teacher Association? And yes, both conventions were in April. I was busy preparing. Both nights, Friday and Saturday turned into long hours of preparing documents, speeches, and much more. The TNLA convention started on the next Tuesday.

The next day, Saturday, we stopped by the office again just to get really acquainted and to put my stamp on the office as president. Even though, I really would not use the office as president that much in person.

We left the office and drove around aimlessly. First through Oak Ridge. Then back to Knox County and went east. We eventually ended up at Norris Lake. 

We enjoyed visiting this beautiful TVA lake that was so close to the new Tennessee PTA office! A great visit to Knoxville, to the Tennessee PTA office, and the beauty of east Tennessee.

Building Sold - April 4, 2023

Downtown Nashville and I am trying to find the attorney's office. I made the trip up to Nashville and plan to return back to Chattanooga all in the same day.  I was briefly the only Tennessee PTA president with two offices at the same time -- one starting up in Knoxville and one being sold in Nashville. 

Finding the attorney's office, I parked in the underground garage, riding the elevator up, wrapped inside a beautiful building.

As I wait I reminded myself that I made my last visit to the office at 1905 Acklen Avenue this morning. I picked up the equipment for our closed out Comcast account to be returned. Took a few pictures. Called the utilities to make a transition to a new building owner.

The only thing we had to leave -- the building plaque by the front door.

The building was completely emptied. But there was a full storage unit just a few minutes away that needed the contents moved to Knoxville. That comes in the month of May.

At the attorney's office, I met the realtor and the attorney. We signed a lot of papers! The building is sold! All the hard work  paid off with only one more big thing left to do -- moving from one storage unit in Nashville to another storage unit in Knoxville.

Special edition of our Tennessee PTA newsletter announcing the sale of the building.

But our announcement was preempted by the Nashville media the day before we announced to the membership.

A goodbye video

February 2023 - More trips to the Tennessee PTA State Office, Nashville

It seemed like I was making a trip to Nashville at least once a week. 

On February 18, Gina and I had a good weekend trip. We turned the corner during the Thanksgiving trip. We slammed the door shut on cleaning out the building on this trip!

Incredibly we had things ready to go for the big move to Knoxville. Things were looking up finally.

President's Desk in the President's Office

Back door steps are rough on hauling out trash!

Sunlight pouring into the emptied out board room.

Posing against one of the front door columns

Saying goodbye to the President's Office. The last TNPTA President at this office.