Army Vet Learning To Build Houses; Anniversary Present For Wife A Bonus

After the 20

th

year of marriage, appropriate anniversary gifts are listed by five-year increments in most references. So, what do you give your wife to commemorate 39 years of wedded bliss?

On their 39

th

anniversary on April 16, Howard G. Herring of Lanier Street in Oxford decided to give his wife, the former Marian Newell, something of himself and his own creativity. Herring, a student in the carpentry program at Vance-Granville Community College, built his bride a china hutch.

In the carpentry program, students learn how to read blueprints, lay out the floor plan for a house, frame it up, put on the roof, install dry wall, put on siding and build cabinets. For practical experience, they build houses that the college sells by bids to purchase materials to build more houses.

“We were waiting for the houses built by the previous class to be sold so we could start on a new house, and Keith (Tunstall, carpentry program head/instructor) said we could work on a project inside the shop,” Herring said.

“My wife wanted a china hutch, and I had a vision of what I wanted so I drew up the plans. Keith told me I could do it, and he stayed with me all the way,” said Herring. Sure enough, the final touches were done April 15, and the birch and basswood hutch with cherry stain was taken home in time for the anniversary celebration.

Herring, 61, took a roundabout path to VGCC’s carpentry program. A native of Dunn, he was in the U.S. Army, stationed in Kansas City where he met Marian Newell, formerly of Oxford, and they were married within 30 days, on April 16, 1960. Following his retirement from active duty, they moved back to her hometown.

Herring used his G.I. Bill benefits to obtain his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and worked for a time at the former Kittrell Junior College as the educational development officer and media specialist. He then returned to active duty as a recruiting supervisor for Army Reserves, retiring for good in June 1997.

“I did absolutely nothing for a year, but that got old, so I decided to use some VA benefits and go to school,” Herring said. “I decided to take carpentry since I have several rental properties to manage, and Mike Norwood, a former instructor in the VGCC carpentry program, told me how good it was.”

According to Herring, Norwood was right. The former G.I. said he had no concept of how to lay out the foundation for a house, but now he can do that as well as all the other functions of building a house, inside and out. Herring said he’ll use these skills to maintain and renovate his rental houses.

Herring has high praise for the carpentry program and for Keith Tunstall. “If students apply themselves, they can become efficient carpenters through this program,” he said. “Keith is a good, patient teacher who takes a ‘hands-on’ approach. He not only explains what needs to be done, but the reason why.”

Herring will complete the one-year carpentry/cabinetmaking program at the end of summer term in August. He likes this school so much he said he plans to enroll again in Fall Semester, “In something else I really need to know more about – computers.”

And what did Marian Herring think of her anniversary present? “He did a beautiful job,” she said proudly.

New carpentry classes, both daytime and evening, will begin Aug. 23 with the beginning of Fall Semester. For more information, interested persons may call Herbert Washington, vocational advisor, at 492-2061.

In the photograph above, Herring makes sure there are no fingerprints on the glass doors of the china hutch he built in class as a gift for his wife.