President's Report - Gordon State College

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President’s Report
An Idea Helps Student
Attend Gordon State College
In 2009 when Gordon State College installed a historical marker
to commemorate President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s historic
1938 visit to Barnesville, attendee Dan White got an idea.
“After attending that event, I thought of the possibility of creating
an endowed scholarship in FDR’s memory to further commemorate
his historic visit here,” said White, director of program services for the
Rural Library Project, Inc.
Exactly 73 years to the day, and a few steps away from where
Roosevelt addressed a crowd estimated at nearly 50,000 to dedicate
the first Rural Electric Cooperative in Georgia, the scholarship that
White endowed, the “Franklin Delano Roosevelt Scholarship,” was
awarded to its first recipient, Isaac Fenwick.
“I am proud to play a small part in honoring our 32nd president
and in so doing strengthen the link of Gordon State College to his
legacy,” White said during a ceremony in Gordon’s Hightower Library.
“While no Roosevelt scholar, I feel certain that FDR would be immensely
proud of Gordon State College and of all the improvements
that have occurred in his beloved Georgia.”
Fenwick said he “almost passed out” when he received the letter
announcing that he was being awarded the scholarship. He thanked
two of his professors, Bethany Johnson and David Janssen, for their
support as well as his family for believing in him and White for establishing
the scholarship.
Fenwick plans to attend medical school with the hopes of becoming
a pediatrician. He was part of the first class of students to
earn a biology degree this year.
“What I plan to do after I finish college is save lives,” Fenwick
said. “I know that the journey may be tough and long and agonizing,
but in the end it will be worth it.”
Those attending the event also heard from Abit Massey, chairman
of the FDR Warm Springs Memorial Advisory Commission who
read a letter from Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, FDR’s granddaughter, who
wrote, “Gordon State College is quite clearly an educational institution
that talks boldly about its commitment to diversity and community.
Our grandfather never shirked voicing his vision for America and
the world, one where four essential freedoms characterized the lives
of people everywhere in the world. Freedom from want, freedom from
fear, freedom of worship, and freedom of speech are inherent in the
vision and mission of Gordon State College extending and preserving
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s legacy here in central Georgia. As your students
leave this campus with their degrees they will carry this legacy
Melton Johnson (left), Carolyn Wynn Blalock, Sarah Wynn,
Fenwick Johnson and Dan White.
with them, and make their contribution to that world of freedom and
fairness for all.”
Also part of the ceremony was a presentation by Carolyn Wynn
Blalock, on behalf of the Wynn family, of a copy of the diploma her
mother, Evelyn Wilson Wynn, earned as a member of the Sixth District
A&M Class of 1922.
The Sixth District A&M, which closed in the 1930s, was located
on what is now the campus of Gordon State College.
“She received her teacher preparation at A&M and then taught in
a one-room school house in Lovejoy where she met and married my
father, James H. Wynn,” Blalock said during the ceremony. “Learning
that the college had in its archives no diplomas from the A&M
years, we are very pleased to give the college a copy of my mother’s
1922 diploma and a copy of her graduation picture. I am certain
she would be both pleased and honored to add her contribution to
Gordon State College as it continues to guide its students into the
future, building on its strong foundations of the past.”
Blalock and her niece, Sarah Wynn, also acknowledged the donation
of a print of FDR. The print, a copy of the famous “unfinished
portrait” which was being painted when Roosevelt died while at the
Little White House in 1945, was given to Gordon State College by
White, Wynn’s partner in the Rural Library Project, Inc.
All the items are on display in the Hightower Library on the Gordon
campus.