MILLEDGEVILLE — EDITOR’S NOTE: In recognition of May as National Teacher Appreciation Month, this is the last in a month-long series profiling the community service work of local retired educators.



A more than 20-year dedicated career within the education system came to an end in 2005, and Dr. Gloria Wicker has been juggling her time between local organizations and family activities ever since.

Wicker is a Columbus native who received a bachelor’s degree in English from Clark College in 1970, currently Clark Atlanta University. She earned a master’s degree in special education six years later from Columbus College, now known as Columbus State University, and a doctorate in educational leadership in 1997 from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Her life settled in Muscogee County with her husband, Alan, where she began her career as a junior high school special education teacher in nearby Harris County before teaching in her own hometown. Wicker’s passion to become a special education teacher sparked when her life intertwined with a mentally challenged man.

“The way I got started in special education was because someone close to me is mentally challenged. It always fascinated me how this particular young man could learn,” Wicker said. “Even at church, I was always the one to teach others. Teaching is just a part of me.”

In 1987, the Wicker family migrated to Milledgeville, and she began teaching math and social studies to special needs students at Boddie Junior High School, commonly known as Boddie Middle School.

“The then principal told several people about the special education opportunity in the county. I thought this was a special challenge,” she said. “I became the due process facilitator for special education in the late 1980s for the entire school system. After one year, the director of special education resigned ... and I became the acting director for the system. From there, after one year, I was named the director of the special needs program for the system, and I did that for 15 years until I retired in 2005.”

Wicker said she witnessed special needs children progress academically during her 18-year career in Milledgeville.

“When I became director of special education, the buzzword was ‘mainstreaming,’ where a lot of special needs children were put in regular [classes. Later,] the word became ‘inclusion,’ where a regular classroom has a special education teacher and a regular teacher, and it is proving to be helpful to special needs kids and regular kids,” she said. “The special education kids are doing better academically, which was the whole point of doing inclusion. Teachers still need to learn to teach together and use their resources better, meaning textbooks, and teach children the way they learn best. It’s evolving and getting better, though.”

Wicker said during her hectic job as director, she rarely had free time to read to children. She is concerned about the high number of students who are not motivated to read. So, she plans to continue encouraging children to do just that by reading books to students during the school year.

“Even when I was in the school system, I did my best to try to encourage students to graduate from school and become productive citizens,” she said. “My passion is children. If I could speak to every one of them, I would say, ‘get your education.’ Especially with the economy the way it is now, they need to do something that will help them help themselves.”

As pastor of St. Paul AME Church Clinton in Gray and another church in Haddock, she keeps her calendar full with many community organizations and family activities. She is a member of the Family Connections Collaborative Group in Jones County, the secretary on the board of directors for Milledgeville Cares, the treasurer for the Baldwin County Retired Educators Association for the past five years, a golden life member of Delta Sigma Theta and an active member of the Clark Atlanta University Alumni Association. Wicker is also a breast cancer survivor, cancer-free for the past seven years.

“Additionally, in 2005, just as I was about to retire, I was asked to direct a group home for boys — Woodland Children Homes. We worked with the Department of Juvenile Justice and the Department of Family and Children’s Services throughout the state, and boys would come live here. They just closed this past February because of the down economy,” she said. “After I got back from China in 1991, I had a biopsy that proved to be negative. A year later, the doctor found a lump so I had breast cancer surgery. The one thing that kept me going is my faith in God.”

After 23 loving years of marriage, the Wicker family has grown from four children to now including eight grandchildren. With a love for travel, the couple has been to Africa, Italy and Spain among a few other countries.

“My husband and I usually sit down and look at our calendars together and we make time to have fun,” she said. “We have a trip planned to Africa in March 2011, but if we can’t get enough people to sign up, then we want to go to Alaska again. We’re planning a week with the grandchildren in Atlanta sometime soon.”

She reminisced of challenging days she faced during her long career in education, but she said she knew it was all worthwhile.

“I enjoyed my teaching career. I miss working with the people because I had a good group of people to work with,” she said. “It was hard because there were always rules coming down from the state department, but in spite of it all, the bottom line was we gotta do what we gotta do for the kids and that’s what I kept doing until it was time to retire.”