Felisha Barker never turned away a student at the Pasco-Hernando Community College's Dade City campus.
By BREANNE GILPATRICK
Published April 12, 2005
Just as she had promised, Felisha Barker left Thursday for the Florida African American Student Union Conference in Fort Myers with two Pasco-Hernando Community College students.
She had just left the hospital Wednesday after two days of cardiac tests. But she didn't want to miss the conference, said Calvin Darnell Pippins, 22, one Barker's students.
"She knew she had to be there," said Pippins, president of the East Pasco chapter of the African American Student Union "She wanted to be there for the kids."
Ms. Barker always put others ahead of herself, friends and family said. And this was true until the moment she died.
Ms. Barker, 31, a financial aid and academic adviser at the PHCC east campus in Dade City, died Sunday (April 10, 2005). She collapsed while picking up a cake for a relative's birthday party.
The family is still waiting for autopsy results, said Ms. Barker's aunt, Harriett Craig, 47. But Ms. Barker had a history of heart problems, friends said.
Ms. Barker has worked at PHCC since 1996 and was one of about 20 African-American staff members at PHCC.
Michael Cook, assistant dean of student services for the PHCC east campus, met Ms. Barker about a year and a half ago and said she was always doing whatever she could for her students and for her community.
"She just always gave of who she was to the young people, never turned them away, never said no," Cook said.
From the time she was 5, Ms. Barker loved to teach, said Craig, her aunt.
"She always had some little kids in front of her," Craig remembers.
Tameca Bowens, 31, who has known Ms. Barker since the two were in Head Start together, said her friend's office was filled with photos of all the young people she had helped over the years.
"Her room was full of children," Bowens said. "Even though she didn't have any children of her own, the children of the community were her children."
Suphia Pickett, 34, a family friend, said the neighborhood children could always count on Ms. Barker to be at their track meets, football games, basketball games.
Ms. Barker also helped with Pickett's daughter Allysen Burse, now 11, buying school clothes for Allysen and encouraging her to get good grades.
"I was a single parent for a while," Pickett said. "And she kind of took my daughter under her wing."
A candlelight service will be held at 7:30 tonight in the student services area on the PHCC Dade City campus. School officials are expecting about 100 people, Cook said.
Pippins, who helped organize the memorial, said he wanted to offer closure to the many students whose lives Ms. Barker had touched.
Ms. Barker was as involved in her community as she was with her students. She helped found the African American Heritage Society of East Pasco, a society that aims to promote African-American history in the area, said Imani Asukile, 50, district coordinator of equity at PHCC. She helped coordinate a Kwanzaa celebration for the group in December.
Carolyn Madill, who worked with Ms. Barker in the PHCC financial aid office said her death is going to "be a big hole" at the school.
"Let's just say there is no church in this area big enough to be able hold that funeral," Madill said.
