Late educator's lessons go beyond the classroom

Greta Adams, who died Tuesday, strived to satisfy the desire to learn. Former students say she gave them confidence along the way.

By KENT FISCHER

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 11, 2000

DADE CITY -- Greta Adams, a cherished Dade City teacher and principal, died at her home Tuesday afternoon after a long fight with cancer. She was 62.

Ms. Adams' career spanned 33 years, begining in 1964 at Pasco Comprehensive High School where she taught business and adult education classes. She championed poor and minority children and helped ease racial tensions when the schools desegregated in the late 1960s.

Ms. Adams' lessons transcended the classroom and continue to guide her former students today.

Jeanette Thompson, an internationally acclaimed opera singer and a 1974 graduate of Pasco High, said Ms. Adams taught her to strive for perfection and to believe in herself. It was a message seldom told at the time to young black girls growing up in Dade City, she said.

"There are few people in your life who, from the first time you meet them, see your potential and believe in you," Thompson said from her home in New York City. "It was as if she could reach into your soul and take away the entire concept of mediocrity. It's amazing that, 20 years later, something like that carries on."

Oakley Funeral Home, 11441 U.S. 301, Dade City, is handling the arrangements. Visiting hours will be Friday evening from 5 to 8. Her funeral will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Pasco High School gymnasium. She is survived by her children, a brother, four sisters and two grandchildren.

Ms. Adams had fought breast cancer for 15 years, her daughter said. Two years ago, the cancer spread to her lungs, and just recently, doctors found nine tumors in her brain. On the day the doctors diagnosed her brain cancer, Ms. Adams exclaimed to her children what a lovely day it was.

"She couldn't understand why everyone had such long faces," said her daughter Tammie Arias, herself a Pasco schoolteacher. "She has been my angel and mentor. She's the reason why I love children. She's the reason why I'm a teacher."

Ms. Adams' son William is also a teacher, and he too chooses to work with needy kids. He said one reason he decided to teach in Pasco County was so he could learn from his mother.

"When people say that they can see my mother in me, that's the ultimate compliment," he said.

Like many of her former students, Ms. Adams grew up poor. A native of South Carolina, her humble roots helped cement her belief that, with encouragement and high expectations, needy children will succeed in school and in life, her friends and family said.

"She was always the underdog, always the last one chosen," Tammie Arias said of her mother. "She swore that she would never be that kind of person. The only thing that's important to Mama is the essence of who you are. Color doesn't matter. Class doesn't matter."

Ms. Adams taught business at Pasco High for 13 years before being named an assistant principal at Pasco Junior High late in the 1976-77 school year. She was an assistant principal for only a few months before she was named principal, a job she held for eight years.

"She had a magic with kids that I've never seen before in my life," said Pasco County School Superintendent John Long. "There were no barriers for her when it came to kids. Black, white, rich, poor, it didn't matter."

Several of her former students said Ms. Adams played a crucial role in easing racial tensions when Pasco schools desegregated in the late 1960s. While Hernando High School struggled to keep the peace among black and white students, there was no trouble at Pasco High, thanks, in large part, to Ms. Adams.

Arthur Bullard Jr. was a member of the first integrated class to graduate from Pasco High in 1970. It was Ms. Adams who convinced him that he could succeed in the mostly white school, even though the curriculum was tougher than what he had studied at his all-black school.

"She told me: "Don't worry about that. You can achieve,' " Bullard said. "Then she put her arms around me and said, "I love you,' and it was the most honest, sincere feeling."

When Bullard received a scholarship to study at Oxford University in England, Ms. Adams was among the first he called with the news.

"I told her, "I'm studying at the No. 1 university in the world, and it's because of you,' " said Bullard, who lovingly refers to Ms. Adams as "Mom." "She encouraged you -- almost forced you -- to set the highest standards for yourself and not to accept anything less."

Ricky Thomas, a 1974 graduate of Pasco High, said Ms. Adams changed his life when she offered him a job coaching football at a middle school in 1980.

Thomas was headed to California but decided to first say goodbye to his mentor and former teacher. She offered him a coaching job on the spot and persuaded him to stay. That was 20 years ago. In 1996 Thomas was named the first black high school football coach in Pasco County.

"All this time, we've kept close. We've been to her house for dinner; she's given me a lot of advice on all the hard decisions I've had to make," Thomas said. "She taught me things I still live by today."

Friday night, Thomas' Pasco High Pirates defeated arch-rival Zephyrhills High School, 10-7. Afterward, Thomas, his assistants and players prayed at midfield and dedicated the game to his former mentor.

"This is for Greta Adams," he said.

Ms. Adams left Pasco Junior High in 1988 to become principal of Moore-Mickens Education Center. It was one of the district's first alternative schools for troubled kids. While principal, Ms. Adams created the district's first educational program for teen mothers and another for students who had dropped out. The fit at Moore-Mickens couldn't have been better for Ms. Adams, her former colleagues said.

"Greta's strength has always been with kids who needed that extra help," said Mary Giella, a former Pasco assistant superintendent. "For Dade City, Greta was an oasis. The kids who lived in the finest houses and the kids who lived on the other side of the tracks, their parents all trusted her. Everybody got hugs from Greta."

Ms. Adams' job application to Pasco schools, dated Aug. 25, 1964, gave a glimpse of the teacher she was to become. On the application's last page Ms. Adams penned her philosophy of teaching:

"Every child has a need and desire to learn, and I, as his teacher, must be the one to meet his demands as completely and as understandingly as possible."

- Staff writer Jamal Thalji contributed to this report. Kent Fischer covers education in Pasco County. He can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6241 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 6241. His e-mail address is kfischer@sptimes.com.

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