Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 17, 1990 TAG: 9004170463
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
Harmon took the General Equivalency Diploma test four times before passing it. She kept missing by only a point or two "but I didn't give up," she said.
"If I don't show that I can do it, why should they?" she says of her two teen-age boys, both students at Christiansburg High School. "I'm always saying [to them] education is very important. Right now nobody can get a job without it - not even a ditch digger, anymore."
Harmon immigrated to the United States from The Netherlands in 1963. She came with her husband of six months, a U.S. Army sergeant who had been stationed in France.
As a child when World War II began, she had to quit school to clean houses and help support her family. She never returned to school - until two years ago, when she decided to earn her GED certificate. She wanted to be able to help her sons with school work and to be a good role model for them.
Harmon was for years a sheet-metal punch operator at Harvey Hubbell Inc., pushing 110 pounds of metal every minute of the workday. A fall down a staircase 16 years ago left her partially disabled.
Now she spends her time tending her flower garden and lovely home and doing volunteer work for the community. And she reads more than ever.
"English is my second language," she said, "and if I can do it anybody can."
by CNB