More than just ESL teacher, Lunceford has been mentor

Dr. Janie Rodgers (left) congratulated Bolton Lunceford on her retirement after 18 years teaching Adult Education and English as a Second Language in Taliaferro and Wilkes counties. Bolton Lunceford has retired after 18 years of touching lives and helping build bridges in the community by teaching Adult Education and English as a Second Language.

"I believe Bolton is the last of the original teachers from our program. She was here at the very start," Dr. Janie Rodgers, the head of the Adult Literacy Department at Athens Technical College, said, "In 1989, Athens Tech started the Adult Literacy Program with counties in their area. Bolton began teaching then in Taliaferro County. She taught eight years, and had students from every walk of life - some who didn't speak much English, some who needed their GED, some who were learning to read - and they met two nights a week. And that was the first time those classes had been offered in the area."

After eight years in Taliaferro County, Lunceford came to Washington and began teaching English as a Second Language classes at the Parish House of the Episcopal Church of the Mediator, coordinating with Polly Fievet of Wilkes County Adult Learning Center of Athens Tech here.

"Bolton has always taken such an interest in her students," Fievet said. "More than just teaching English, she's been a mentor."

"One of the things I've enjoyed the most," Lunceford said, "was getting to know the students, and getting to know the Mexican community through them. And they want to take part in the community when they can - we had a wonderful group in traditional costume sing in our Little Theater Christmas production. They took it on with such enthusiasm, bought special outfits, and came down the aisles singing in Spanish. They took such joy in being part of the life of the community.

Lunceford also took pains to help immigrants fit into the community with the survival skills she taught. "I work with landlords and banks, medicine and transportation, driver's license application, insurance papers - whatever they need."

Now, with retirement, Bolton Lunceford says she'll just "loll about for a while." Now all she has to fill her time is serving as treasurer for the Georgia Council on Aging, serving as a board member and treasurer of the Washington Little Theater Company, and teaching classes on Wednesday and Sunday at church.