Success Stories
We are proud to present these success stories from some of our graduates. They were all featured this summer in our Fall Edition of ARCHES! We hope you enjoy their stories!
CuriosityLeadsTo New Career
Angie Wootenof Franklin County
Medical Assistant, Village Family Care of Wake Forest
While Taking Other Classes at VGCC,
Franklin County Native Discovers,
Enrolls In Medical Assisting Program
Angie Wooten had been interested in nursing, but she never planned to become a medical assistant. In fact, she didn’t even know what a medical assistant was, but her natural curiosity led to a change of direction to the successful career she enjoys today.
Soon after graduation from Bunn High School, the Franklin County native got married and started a family. That marriage didn’t work out, and Angie returned home from Cherry Point where her husband was stationed in the Navy.
It was after this return home that she enrolled in Vance-Granville Community College, starting the Information Systems program at the Franklin County Campus. Meanwhile, across the hall from her classroom there was this brand new program – Medical Assisting – getting started.
“I had never heard of Medical Assisting, but I saw these people doing nursing-type things, and I began to ask the instructor, who was also the program head, what it was about,” Angie said. “The more I found out about it, the more it appealed to me, and I changed over to Medical Assisting.”
Medical Assisting students do an externship in a doctor’s office or clinic where they get practical experience. Angie did hers at the Perry-Medders Clinic in Louisburg. “There were no openings in the immediate area, and they were going to send me to Rocky Mount for my externship,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to make that long drive every day so one day I saw the late Dr. (Carey J.) Perry, who had been my grandfather’s doctor, and I asked him if I could train in his office. Even though he was not that familiar with the medical assistant, he allowed me to come in.”
The externship must have worked out well, because Angie went to work full-time at the Perry-Medders Clinic after graduating from Vance-Granville Community College with an associate in applied science degree in Spring 2001 with the second Medical Assisting graduating class. In August 2002, following the death of Dr. Perry, Angie moved to Village Family Care in Wake Forest where she works today.
Medical Assisting combines the duties of nursing with the administrative functions necessary for a physician’s office or a clinic. Angie Wooten performs mostly nursing tasks at Village Family Care, taking vital signs, giving injections, doing EKGs and even assisting doctors doing minor surgery in the office.
Even though she is not doing them now, Angie, like all VGCC Medical Assisting graduates, is able to perform the administrative tasks of the clinic, such as coding, filing insurance and maintaining patient records.
“I enjoyed my school work at Vance-Granville, and they trained me very well in all the clinical and administrative areas of a doctor’s office,” she said. “When I was in school, the students practiced venipunctures (taking blood) and injections on each other. This has helped me a lot in the field.”
“Also, Mrs. (Tammy) Care (Medical Assisting program head/instructor) emphasized hooking up all EKG leads just right,” Angie said. “Although I thought I’d never get to do that, I’m glad I paid attention because I do EKGs on patients almost every day.”
The word is spreading in the medical field on the capabilities of medical assistants, but Angie Wooten said, “I would like people to better understand how versatile medical assistants are, what training they’ve had and what they’re capable of doing. Vance-Granville’s Medical Assisting program prepares people very well for what we do in doctor’s offices.”
When Angie Wooten isn’t looking after patients in the Wake Forest clinic, she is tending to her husband, Joseph Wooten, and her children, Erica Goswick, 8, Addison Goswick, 5, and little Emily Wooten, born May 12.
VGCC Graduate Helping To Keep
Navy Nuclear Vessels Ship-Shape
Danny Mangumof Norfolk
Henderson Native
Engineer, Norfolk Naval Shipyard
When nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines enter the Norfolk Naval Shipyard for overhaul or repair, they will find a Vance Granville-Community College graduate ready and able to help make the job go right.
Henderson native Danny Mangum Jr. began work in February in the Nuclear Engineering and Planning Department at the shipyard. He is a troubleshooter on nuclear submarines and carriers, documenting problems he finds in their controls engineering. He is also changing control systems from analog to digital.
Danny, the son of Carol and Danny Mangum of Henderson, is a 1994 graduate of Southern Vance High School. He entered Vance-Granville Community College in 1996 and graduated from the college’s College Transfer program in 1998. While at Vance-Granville, Danny was very active in campus activities. He was an Ambassador, representing the school at on- and off-campus functions, and he was president of the Student Government Association. In the latter role, he was also the student representative to the VGCC Board of Trustees.
Following graduation from VGCC, Mangum attended N.C. State University in Raleigh, earning degrees in Electrical Engineering in May 2002 and in Computer Engineering in December 2002.
“I feel Vance-Granville prepared me well for my classes at N.C. State,” Danny said. “The small classes and instructor attention helped me learn to study so I was ready for the large classes where you are on your own at the university.”
While at N.C. State, Mangum was also active in campus activities. He was treasurer of the Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, was secretary of the Engineers Council, was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and participated in a leadership development series.
After working several years at the Naval Shipyard, Danny plans to attend either William & Mary College in Williamsburg or Old Dominion University in Norfolk and obtain a master’s in Business Administration. He feels that degree will open up even better opportunities for him in the future. “I’m excited and ready to get started in my new career and new life,” he said.
Danny Mangum hasn’t forgotten or forsaken Vance-Granville Community College. He currently serves as president of the VGCC Alumni Association and is eager to get that organization active and thriving again.
‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’
Warren County Woman Uses Skills Learned
At VGCC To Open Her Own Floral Design Studio
Carolyn Cheekof Warrenton
Owner and Operator
CC’s Showers of Distinction
Carolyn Cheek was running a bit behind her four siblings in the education race for awhile, but she’s on a flat-out fast pace to catch up, and Vance-Granville Community College helped get her started.
“My mother (Annie Cheek of the Cheektown community of Warren County) always promoted the value of education,” Carolyn Cheek said. “Mama said, ‘You can always get it with your mind or with your back, but the mind pays more’.”
Carolyn’s three sisters and one brother all were listening. Each of them has at least a four-year college education. However, when Carolyn graduated from John Graham High School, she took jobs at Norlina Mills and later at Louisburg Sportswear.
Then she got a job in the Agricultural Extension Program in Warren County in the food and nutrition section and, while employed here, she began classes at Vance-Granville Community College. “I needed better pay and realized I needed more education to get it,” Carolyn Cheek said. “I remembered what my mother had always preached.”
It took Carolyn three years to complete her associate in applied science degree in Business Administration, but that’s not bad when you consider she was working full-time (at Warren Hills Nursing Center and in Raleigh as a food service supervisor) and she also took time out to have one of her two children.
Carolyn Cheek’s next employment stop took her to the N.C. Department of Correction, where she worked 12 years in the Warren Correctional Center. It was during this time that she began to use what she had learned in her VGCC classes. She opened a florist and a catering business, and she used the business plan she had developed in her VGCC classes as the model for her catering business. Carolyn continued to work at the prison while others worked in her businesses under her direction.
In 2002, Carolyn Cheek left the Department of Correction and began to operate full-time CC’s Showers of Distinction, her floral design studio on Main Street in Warrenton. “I remember the commencement speaker when I graduated told us that our degree is like a tool; you can put it in a drawer and always have it, or you can use it, and it will serve you well,” Cheek said. “I have chosen to use mine.”
But working isn’t all Carolyn Cheek has done since graduation from Vance-Granville Community College. “Like my mother, I always pushed education in my own family, and I felt I had to set the example for my children,” she said
So she has continued to attend college, at Shaw University in Raleigh. And this December, Carolyn Cheek will graduate from Shaw with a bachelor’s of science in Business Administration. “I will walk the stage and receive my degree the same month my son, Randall Edwards, receives his degree from North Carolina A&T,” she said.
Randall’s sister, Shanda Edwards, has her master’s degree and teaches Information Systems at Halifax Community College, and she is on the verge of receiving her Ph.D.
And Carolyn Cheek isn’t through yet. She plans to attend law school, probably at North Carolina Central University, and specialize in criminal defense law. “I want to help those who perhaps cannot afford an attorney and give them the full defense they deserve,” she said.
Helping those less fortunate isn’t new for Carolyn Cheek. She has been honored by both the Warren County Youth Services Bureau for being a mentor for and assisting at-risk youth, and by the Head Start Program for her assistance to it.
“I’ve received a lot of help myself, from Vance-Granville instructors who made sure I got what I wanted and needed in my classes, and from those who helped me work my class schedule in with my work schedule,” said Carolyn Cheek. “I just like to give some help, too, when I can.”
Making It All Look Easy
Juggling Family, School, Work
No Problem For This VGCC Grad
ThomasinaJeffersonof Williamsboro
Weatherization Manager
Franklin-Vance-Warren Opportunity, Inc.
Thomasina Mosley Jefferson’s story isn’t that much different from many who attend Vance-Granville Community College; they’ve had to juggle family responsibilities, full-time work and their studies.
And like many others who’ve attended VGCC, Jefferson has made a success of all three and is looking forward to more challenges.
A lifelong resident of the Williamsboro community of Vance County, she is the daughter of Ernestine Mosley Taylor and the late Thomas Mosley. She graduated from Vance Senior High School. While in the 10th grade, she went to work at Americal and continued there full-time after graduation from high school. It was while working there that Jefferson began attending Vance-Granville mornings and evenings, and in 1986 she earned an associate in applied science degree in Executive Secretarial Science.
After one year as a secretary in Oxford, Jefferson joined Franklin-Vance-Warren Opportunity (F-V-W), Inc. as an executive secretary and assistant to the weatherization manager.
But Jefferson’s association with Vance-Granville wasn’t over. In 1998, she returned to the community college and “took as many college transfer courses as I could.
“I wanted to go on to a four-year college and get a bachelor’s degree, but I knew I had to continue to work,” she said. “Beth Brockhaus, a counselor at Vance-Granville, was instrumental in helping me work this out.”
Brockhaus worked with an advisor at North Carolina Wesleyan College to figure out a schedule for Jefferson. She went to classes two days a week from 6 to 10 p.m. at Wesleyan’s campuses in Raleigh and Durham, and she graduated in May 2002 with a bachelor of science in Business Administration.
“I found that my classes at Vance-Granville Community College had prepared me very well for the classes at Wesleyan,” Jefferson said. And, of course, the counseling was vital to ensure that the courses she took at VGCC would transfer and that a schedule could be worked out to fit her needs.
Meanwhile, Jefferson was promoted to weatherization manager at F-V-W. She supervises a crew of three men who audit homes of the elderly, handicapped and low income to determine how the houses can be weatherized with state funds to save owners and renters money on their utility bills and also to save energy.
While achieving this success in school and at work, Jefferson, with the help of her husband, Douglas Jefferson, raised her nephew, Tekulve Thomas, from age 8. Today, he serves in the Army in Iraq. They also have two children of their own, Dwayne, 7, and Tomesha, 2.
Thomasina Jefferson has continued to take courses at Vance-Granville Community College, including computer classes in Word Perfect and Lotus.
“Vance-Granville has been very good for me,” she said. “Even if a person plans to go off to a four-year school, they can get all the basic requirements and stay close to home.”
And Jefferson isn’t through yet. She wants to return to school and get her master’s degree in business administration. “I’ve had a year off from school to recharge my batteries,” she said, “and it’s time to get back into it.”
Happiness Is … Loving What You Do
Multi-Skilled Vocational Grad Enjoys
Career In His Hometown
George Hopkinsof Youngsville
Service Manager
Casey Services HVAC, Inc.
George Hopkins of Youngsville said he always liked working with his hands and problem solving. Since his father, Freddie Hopkins, worked in industrial maintenance, it seemed logical that George would study that vocation when he entered Vance-Granville Community College after graduation from Bunn High School.
Industrial Maintenance (now called Industrial Systems Technology) prepares its students to maintain all the systems one would find in an industrial facility. When Hopkins’ class went into its heating and air conditioning phase, George discovered it really appealed to him. “I found I liked that it gave me the chance to work with my hands, to solve problems, and there was something new every day,” he said.
So, after completing the Industrial Maintenance program in 1994, George Hopkins entered the Air Conditioning, Heating & Refrigeration Technology program and graduated from it a year later. He also took enough classes in the Electrical/Electronics Technology that he’s only a couple of courses shy of that diploma, which he plans to get soon.
Completing multiple programs in the vocational field at Vance-Granville Community College qualifies George Hopkins as a Multi-Skilled Technician, a status also achieved by his brother, Harold Hopkins, who completed the same three programs at VGCC. In fact, the Hopkins brothers put their knowledge together and went into business together awhile before going their separate ways.
While in school at VGCC, George had begun working for a Knightdale heating and air conditioning company, and he remained there five years, beginning as a service technician, installing and repairing units, and working his way up to service manager. With his VGCC diploma and, after the minimum one year of experience, George passed the state exam and earned his heating and air conditioning contractor’s license.
He moved back home three years ago, joining Casey Services HVAC Inc. of Youngsville, “the only place I care about ever living,” he said. After a year as a technician for the residential and light industrial heating and air conditioning company, he was promoted to service manager.
In this job, George Hopkins assigns service calls to technicians and, if he’s needed, he gives them a hand. “I like the work so much, I have to go out and get my hands on it sometimes,” he said.
George Hopkins has nothing but good things to say about his experiences at Vance-Granville Community College. “Everything you learn at VGCC you’ll use in the field, from technical skills to communications,” he said. Communications are a key in getting along with customers, according to Hopkins. “If you take some time to listen to the customer, you’ll often find out what’s wrong with their system, and you’ll have a head start on its repair,” he said. “The key is listening.”
“Almost everything we covered at Vance-Granville is related to the work world,” he added. “In the heating and air conditioning program, the new units they have to work on give the students invaluable hands-on experience.”
George Hopkins is a happy man. He’s living where he wants to, with his wife, Kelly, and son, Jonathan, 3, and near his parents, Betty and Freddie Hopkins. And he has a job he loves for which he’s well trained.
“I’ll probably stay in this field until the day I retire,” he said. “I enjoy it, and I can’t see myself doing anything else.”
National Engineering Honors Begin
With Vance-Granville Foundation
Randolph Huntof Oxford
Program Manager
Solectron of Creedmoor
Every career, like every building, needs a good foundation, and Randolph Hunt of Oxford says Vance-Granville Community College is “truly a foundation institution.”
“Vance-Granville is a good school to get started, and what you get there can take you on a good journey,” Hunt said. He should know; he’s succeeding and enjoying every mile of that journey.
After graduation from J.F. Webb High School, Hunt entered Vance-Granville and received his associate in applied science degree in Business Administration/Industrial Management (now called Operations Management) in the summer of 1991. Like many VGCC students, he worked throughout the period he was attending the school.
Randolph Hunt did a two-year apprenticeship after VGCC with the state of North Carolina as a quality technician at Mayville Metal Products in Creedmoor. He then worked 11 years for Mayville, holding eight jobs in the company as a frontline supervisor of 75 people. He was a quality engineer, quality supervisor and account manager.
During this period, Hunt went back to school, attending N.C. Central University awhile and completing his bachelor’s degree in Organizational Management at Saint Augustine’s College in 2000. He then drove to Greensboro four nights a week for a year and earned his master’s degree in Industrial Technology with a concentration in Manufacturing from North Carolina A&T University.
Following graduation from N.C. A&T, he took a position at the telecommunications company Solectron in Creedmoor as a program manager. In this role, he supervises a group of personnel who take a new concept and develop it into a product. He has also headed teams that transitioned business from closed plants in Atlanta and Florida to the Creedmoor facility, increasing employment in Creedmoor from 280 to 650.
Solectron nominated Hunt for the Black Engineer of the Year Award, and he won the honor, along with four others, at ceremonies in Baltimore in February, sponsored by U.S. Black Engineer, the leading publication for African-American engineering professionals.
“It would be difficult to find someone more deserving of this honor than Randolph,” said Clyde Bailey, human resources manager at Solectron’s Creedmoor facility. “He’s an excellent leader and an exceptional person. His commitment to his job and local community make me proud to know and work with him.”
Community service was part of the criteria for the award, and Randolph Hunt is immersed in his community, particularly in projects to help youth. He began while at Mayville Metals, in a tutoring program at Wilton Elementary School. Today, as a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity, he is on a team that selects boys from at-risk backgrounds and takes them to summer camp.
He doesn’t have to look far to find those boys. His wife, Danielle, works with children from the Oxford Housing Authority projects. By the way, Danielle is currently a College Transfer student at Vance-Granville Community College and will receive her degree at summer graduation in August. Her mother, Barbara Sneed, is also a student at the college.
When Hunt began work at Solectron, he also began taking online courses toward a Ph.D. in manufacturing systems through a consortium program between N.C. A&T and Indiana State University. “Within 10 years, I’d like to teach at a community college or university level,” he said. “I like students and their energy. They teach you as well as you teaching them; you can learn a lot from your students.” He should know. He currently teaches business courses part-time at Vance-Granville.
It has been a dozen years since Randolph Hunt was a student at Vance-Granville Community College, but he remembers what it was like. “It’s a family atmosphere, you can relate to the people you study with, and you can talk to your instructors,” he said. “The classes I had there years ago prepared me to understand industry, and I’m still applying things I learned at Vance-Granville to my work experience.”
Randolph Hunt is always learning, even when he isn’t in school. He said that at the Baltimore conference at which he received his award, “The keynote speech was about being accountable and striving for excellence. I’m now applying that theory to my son, Randolph Jr., 7, who just finished first grade.” Hunt and his wife also have another son, Tiler, 4.
