Beta Gamma News

The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International--Psi State November 2011 Woodall Issue 06

Time for Fall, Time for Sisters!!

By Bethany Lucas Autumn surrounds us with beautiful sights and changes. This is such an enjoyable time of year. For this short time we should embrace the golden colors of fall before the trees are bare and winter blows his chilly wind. I am reminded of a poem by Robert Frost during this season: church in Manchester. Our program will begin at 10:30 and will include the initiation ceremony. We will be initiating Mrs. Dana Hall, who is a teacher of literature at Harris County High School. Dana formerly taught in Chattahoochee County, where she was named Star Teacher and Teacher of the Year. She is married to Randy Hall, and they have one son, Robert, who is in the U.S. Navy. Dana enjoys cooking, reading, and spending time with her family. Let's give her a warm DKG welcome! After the ceremony will be a fun-filled activity that will acquaint you with Delta Kappa Gamma history. We will then have our business meeting followed by a delicious lunch. Please stay for lunch as we enjoy chicken salad croissants, pasta salad with vegetables, Romaine salad, fruit, chocolate cake, and tea. The cost of lunch will be $10.00. After leaving the November meeting, you will be enlightened and delighted!
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"Nothing Gold Can Stay"

By Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
With that poem in mind, please take in the beautiful gold of autumn on your drive to our next meeting. The meeting will be held at the First United Methodist

Dawns Delicacies Big Apple Pancake

With the holidays quickly approaching, this recipe would be great to get your children or grandchildren involved with cooking a holiday breakfast. Yield: Makes 2 servings Active time: 15 min Total time: 30 min Ingredients: 1/2 stick (1/4 cup) unsalted butter 1 large sweet apple such as Gala or Golden Delicious, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch-wide wedges 1/2 cup whole milk 1/2 cup all-purpose flour 4 large eggs 3 tablespoons granulated sugar 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 teaspoon salt Confectioners sugar for dusting Special equipment: A well-seasoned 10- to 11-inch heavy cast-iron skillet or other ovenproof skillet Preparation: Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 450F. Melt butter in skillet over moderate heat, then transfer 2 tablespoons to a blender. Add apple wedges to skillet and cook, turning over once, until beginning to soften, 3 to 5 minutes. While apple is cooking, add milk, flour, eggs, granulated sugar, vanilla, and salt to butter in blender and blend until smooth. Pour batter over apple and transfer skillet to oven. Bake until pancake is puffed and golden, about 15 minutes. Dust with confectioners sugar and serve immediately. Some tips I found for this recipe: Some readers suggested adding cinnamon and brown sugar if you like. Some suggested that because this recipe is more like a custard instead of the typical pancake that we all think of, you could add more apples (or cut back an egg) if it is too eggy for your taste. Serve bacon with it to have a complete breakfast!

Merles Minutes
Hey everybody! I hope everyone has been doing well since our last meeting. This school year has been flying. We just ended our first nine weeks at my school. We have a lot of new and exciting things happening in PSI State this year under our new President, Peggy McCall. I will be emailing you different things that will be happening throughout the year. Please plan to join me at our District 3 meeting in Peachtree City in March. I have sent out the registration form. The District meetings are always fun. Also, be looking for information from me about Delta Hostel, which I believe is going to be in Savannah. Im excited. Im going to try to go to this one. This is our last meeting before Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I want to wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season. Love yall, Merle

Teacher Tips for October by Mary Burdette Creating Photo Essays

By Kim L., High School Language Arts: Hackensack, NJ

"Photo essays are a special type of writing; they tell stories with a group of photographs that are connected to a theme. One activity using photo essays as a type of writing includes having students pick a topic (in any content area) that they would like to "write" about. Tell them that they have to collect photographs or pictures that represent the topic. Once they have their collections and you gave them a chance to discuss the relevance of the photos to the topic, ask them to arrange the photos in such a way (sequentially, etc.) that tell a story or relay the message related to the topic they chose. Students love to express their thoughts about topics using this medium. If you have technology to complete this activity, you can have students cut and paste their story using photos or images that they find on the Internet. This is a great activity for group work."

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

Sydney J. Harris

Red Rose Member News.

Jane Hainlines husband, Don, had a heart attack about 3 weeks ago. He is doing well. Beth Wall is Upson-Lee Middle Schools Teacher of the Year!!! Mary Burdettes son, Ben, is now a licensed EMT, working with CARE ambulance in Columbus and Phenix City. Lynn Skinner has been selected to serve on the Southeast Regional Convention Committee to plan the 2015 Southeast Regional Conference which will be held in Georgia. At this time, a venue and dates have not been selected. I know I can count on Beta Gamma sisters to assist Psi State in showcasing Georgia in 2015! Lynn said.

News
In order for Dawn to meet her deadline for the state, she needs to receive everyones dues by October 31. Her address is 109 Pebble Drive, Thomaston, GA, 30286. The new chapter website is available for viewing. The link is http://psibetagamma.weebly.com/. Lynn Skinner still needs to get it linked to state and International. Laurie Pate has the other site up until the new one is fully in place. Beta Gamma has two websites right now! District 3s workshop is going to be held in Peachtree City in March. Please plan to join us.

Reminder: We will have one person to initiate at this meeting.

November November 22 Lynda Woodall November 27 Katie Hamilton November 29 Jennifer Barbee December December 16 Lisa Tuttle December 29-Ricki Robbins January January 16 Yvonne Atkins January 23 Sylvia Attaway January 21 Janet Fowler January 2 Sallie Mabon January 2 Laurie Pate January 14 Lori Harris January 16 Tammy Harris January 26 Linda Brown

Donations for Projects

Beta Gamma Chapter is helping Psi State celebrate its 75th anniversary by collecting at least 75 school supplies that will be distributed to the local schools. The school supplies collected this year will be given to Manchesters Mountain View Elementary School that was damaged during the tornado storms. Please remember that we have Beta Gamma sisters that work in this school and lost everything. We will continue our projects of childrens book and Bingo prizes. Great Bingo prizes are individual packs of sugar free and regular snacks like crackers or cookies. The donations for this months Bingo prizes will go to the local nursing homes of the Manchester area. Collection boxes will be located near the sign-in table at our November meeting. You will want to be part of these worthwhile projects. Please be sure to mark your calendar with a reminder to bring donations!

We will have a door prize at the November meeting. All you will need to know the anniversary Psi State is celebrating this year. You are going to write your number and your name on a slip of paper. You must have the number correct to win.

Reminder:

November 5, 2011 Beta Gamma meeting in Manchester 2011-2013 Psi State Theme:

Mission Statement The Delta Kappa Gamma Society International promotes the professional growth of women educators and excellence in education.

Member Spotlight:

Lynn Skinner
Lynn Skinner did not set out to be a teacher. Before coming to the classroom, she worked in an office at the University of Georgia, processed insurance claims for a hospital and sold advertising for a newspaper. Since she began her teaching career, she has worked part-time doing payroll for her father-in-law's psychology practice and processed deeds for the Coweta County Clerk of Superior Court's office. "I'm still trying to decide what I want to do when I grow up," she said with a laugh. Lynn grew up in the Stricklandtown community in Meriwether County, which was settled by her ancestors in the 1840s. Several members of her family still live there. The family farm included a huge garden to feed Lynn and her nine siblings, as well as milk cows, chickens and lots of open space. "My mother was very encouraging. We could use anything we had on the place for projects," she remembered. Her brothers made rabbit boxes, and she and her sisters learned to sew their own clothes. Both of Lynn's parents had an eighth grade education. "My mother was a great believer in school. In later years, she told us that she wanted all of her girls to grow up to be teachers and all of her boys to grow up to be preachers," Lynn recalled. Lynn started school at Greenville High School, went a couple of years to Luthersville Elementary School after the schools integrated and then returned to Greenville High. During her senior year, her mother was working as a cottage parent at the Georgia Baptist Children's Home. Lynn went to Palmetto High, but returned to Greenville for graduation that year. "I had gotten a scholarship to go to Clayton Junior College now it's Clayton State to study nursing. It was a two-year program, and I thought that made a lot of sense for me. I was good at science and math, and I would be out of college and working in two years," she remembered. A few months into the program, she decided nursing was not for her. "During our practicum, I figured out I wasn't good at leaving the patients' problems behind when I went home," she said. She dropped out of the nursing program. A professor recommended she major in mathematics, but she had other interests. She had been dating Winston Skinner. They had met in a Sunday School class they were the only members in the class most Sundays at Luthersville Baptist Church. He was a journalism major at the University of Georgia, and she transferred there in her sophomore year. They married between their sophomore and junior years at UGA. Winston got his journalism degree, and Lynn got a bachelors of business administration. They left Athens to move to south Georgia where they ran The Lee County Ledger in Leesburg for about two years.
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During their time in Leesburg, their first daughter, Sallie, was born. The economy was in the doldrums, and Winston eventually took a job at The Newnan Times-Herald, where he had been an intern. The Skinners moved back home living for a time in the house in Stricklandtown where Lynn had grown up. Lynn worked at West Georgia Medical Center. Then she and Winston rode together to The Times-Herald. Soon after their second daughter, Jane, was born, Lynn interviewed with Meriwether County Superintendent Carl Stekelenburg and was hired on a provisional certificate to teach business education at Greenville High. That first year, she taught one class in the room where she had started to first grade. She also was leaving school as soon as the last bell sounded to rush to West Georgia. Lynn got a teaching certificate, credentials to teach high school mathematics, and then earned her master's degree in secondary mathematics education. "I sometimes thought about that professor at Clayton," she mused. At GHS, the faculty included two of Lynn's former teachers, Mary Anne Harman and Isabelle Todd. Lynn became chairman of the math department and joined Beta Gamma Chapter of Delta Kappa Gamma. "My mother-in-law had been a longtime member of Delta Kappa Gamma and had often talked about the Society. I was honored to be asked to join, but had no idea how much I would get from being a member or how much I would enjoy it," she said. After seven years at Greenville High, Lynn got a job at East Coweta High in Coweta County. For several years, she taught math in the Project Success program for at-risk students. She later taught various levels and courses in the mathematics department and became the department chair. When the Coweta County mathematics content specialist position was posted a few years ago, Lynn dismissed it without a thought. Winston, however, encouraged her to apply, and both daughters told her she would be perfect for the job. Apparently, the interviewers agreed. Lynn was hired and still serves in that position, working with teachers as math curriculum changes. Lynn served as treasurer for Beta Gamma for several years, taking on the role that Anne Threadgill had so ably filled for several bienniums. Anne, one of Lynn's former teachers, has been a mentor to Lynn in her involvement in DKG. Lynn served one biennium as the representative from District III on the Psi State Boylston House committee. She enjoys attending meetings where she meets DKG members from across the state. She also served two bienniums as president of Beta Gamma, and she is now the webmaster for the chapter. She completed a biennium as District III director and is now the recording secretary for Psi State. Winston, who still works at The Times-Herald where he is an editor and writer, often travels with her to meetings. He presented a program on Southern authors at the district meeting earlier this year, and even wrote lyrics for a song to go along with the state theme. "I am so proud of Lynn and everything she does. Delta Kappa Gamma is a part of her life that she really enjoys. She gets strength as an educator and a person from the connections she makes there at Beta Gamma meetings and at state level gatherings," Winston said. For 24 years, Winston pastored a rural church in Meriwether County. During that time, Lynn was a vital support to his ministry. They now enjoy sitting together on Sunday mornings at Allen-Lee Memorial United Methodist Church at Lone Oak. Lynn's sister, Eleanor Strickland, spends much of the weekend with them, and it is a special treat when granddaughter, Clair Lynn Kight, gets to spend time with her Muv. Sallie Skinner Kight is working on her third degree at LaGrange College. She teaches math at Newnan High and is a member of Mu Chapter. Jane Skinner, who graduated from Vassar College and got her masters at UGA, is a geriatric social worker and lives in Lawrenceville.
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Lynn got her specialist degree at West Georgia several years ago and now is back there working on an EdD in school improvement. "I've discovered another reason the doctorate is considered a terminal degree," she said. Lynn has finished all the coursework for her degree and is now working on her dissertation, a study comparing high school mathematics achievement of students taught on a traditional schedule to those taught on a block schedule. "I love Delta Kappa Gamma, and Beta Gamma Chapter is truly special. What a wonderful group of dedicated professionals I am proud to be a part and to have so many wonderful DKG friends," she concluded.

Lynn Skinner with her husband, Winston, and daughter Jane, son-in-law Jim, granddaughter Clair Lynn, and daughter Sallie.

DKG Sisters in Savannah

Twenty 7th and 8th grade Quest students spent three days in Savannah and along the coast learning about the historic city and marine ecology. Studying with instructors from the University of Georgia's Marine Education Center, they experienced hands-on lab work, as well as studies on two undeveloped islands. Doing a marsh transect on Cabbage Island, they learned about oysters and water quality. On Wassaw Island, they learned about the marsh, maritime forest, and life along the beach. In the labs, they used a dichotomous key to identify different species of fish and compound microscopes to observe tiny critters they gathered from the docks. The teachers conducted their own historic tour of Savannah and were pleased when someone asked about the group, commenting that they don't often see groups from public schools on historic tours. They said they're usually from private schools. A swashbuckling pirate got the group in the mood for the haunted tour at the Pirates House Restaurant, where the group had supper. The more the group walked through the dark streets, the spookier the tales became. Group leader, Laurie Pate, planned the trip, having led six prior groups to the coast. Angela Williams and Sallie Mabon contributed to both the historic and haunted tours. This was the fifth trip for Quest, Meriwether's gifted program.

Laurie Pate, Sallie Mabon, and Angela Williams supervised Savannah trip.

Gathering micro-invertebrates on the floating dock and identifying fish with a dichotomous key.