VGCC Graduate donates her work to college

A gift to Vance-Granville Community College will serve as a lasting reminder of a special graduate.

When Warren County native Annie M. Russell retired after 33 years with the United States Postal Service in New York, she already had earned an associate degree in nursing, a bachelor’s degree in psychology and had taken graduate-level courses in theology. But she decided that she wanted to take “just about every course offered” at Vance-Granville (near where she had retired), according to her daughter, Sandra Butler Tubbs of Henderson. Russell wanted to learn how to repair her house, so she enrolled in the Carpentry program. Keith Tunstall, her instructor and the head of that program, said that Russell was a source of “motivation for the other students,” most of whom were much younger than she was. While a student, she built a large piece of furniture, a bookcase made of birch and basswood with a cherry stain. “She did an excellent job,” Tunstall said. “I was, and am, very proud of her.” Russell and her daughter have now decided to donate the bookcase she built to the college. “This will help preserve her legacy,” Tubbs said of the donation.

Russell, who expressed great praise for Tunstall’s instruction, graduated with a carpentry diploma in 1998 and an Automotive Systems Technology diploma in 2000. When Tubbs and Russell stopped by Tunstall’s shop on the main campus in November, VGCC Dean of Business and Applied Technologies Bobby Van Brunt thanked them for the bookcase, which he described as “a gorgeous work of art.”

Above: From left, seated, VGCC graduate Annie Russell and her daughter, Sandra Butler Tubbs, pose in front of Russell’s bookcase and, from left, standing, VGCC Carpentry program head Keith Tunstall and Dean of Business and Applied Technologies Bobby Van Brunt. (VGCC Photo)