Glenn Newsome Is Smiling Now

By the side of President Jimmy Carter as he signed the Department of Education Reform Bill, a lifelong advocate for education, and an honorary nurse, Jasper County resident Glenn Newsome is smiling and walking more .
Most recently as Executive Director of Georgia’s Student Finance Commission (HOPE scholarships), the smiling Mr. Newsome has traded his three hour a day commute to Atlanta for an extra cup of tea and a second walk every morning. {{more}}
“I am enjoying retirement. Everyone is asking me “How do you like retirement? I say it is wonderful,” said Mr. Newsome. Deciding last July to retire soon, Governor Barnes talked Mr. Newsome into staying past the election. At the end of 2002, Mr. Newsome said he thought it was time to retire.
“It is very new. I am really having to get accustomed to not having a pager on all the time. And being at somebody’s call 24 hours a day for at least the last 12 years, it has been a real adjustment for me.”
“I really have three hobbies. I enjoy reading, farming and gardening and walking which I try to do every morning.
“I have a terribly bad habit of reading two or three books at a time. I love the public library here. It is a tremendous resource.
“Nancy (Mrs. Newsome) has said, ‘why don’t you read one book and finish it, that is the more normal thing to do,'” he laughed.
“Monticello is our home. We came here by choice over 25 years ago and it has been wonderful for my family, for our children. It is a great place to raise children. We wanted to be part of a community and that is what Monticello is, a community of diversity which is good for children and it is good for the community itself.
“Living in Monticello has helped me to relate to political leaders about what the real world is about. It is not about what is inside the perimeter. There are other parts of Georgia.
“I’m from a rural area, Sandersville, Georgia, originally. I graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in history. Then I went to law school for a quarter and decided that wasn’t for me. Then Nancy and I started teaching school in 1970. After a year of teaching I went to work for the Georgia Association of Educators.
“I became the teachers’ chief lobbyist and served as their lobbyist for 14 years and then went to work with the state department of education and as a legislative liaison.”
“When I left there I was deputy state school superintendent for a couple of years. Then I went to work with Governor [Zell] Miller for a while and there to the student finance commission. It is not a career path I would recommend to anyone,” he laughs.
“I am a Georgia native. I love this state. This is the state of the future. No question about it, we have everything that every other state has and then some. We need to emphasize education more. I have spent my life in education. I strongly believe that education is the key both for individuals and the community.”
“Parents need to be involved in the school and involved in education. As you know we have been blessed with four children. My wife has been on the school board. She has been very involved in this community. And that all helped me have a perspective about the problems at the local level.
“I think the teachers are the key.
“The most fundamental part of education is the teacher. What you have got to do is to attract and keep the best and brightest in teaching and whether that is higher salaries or better working conditions, or just more respect.
“That is where learning takes place between the teacher and the student. I think we need to give teachers more respect and we need to give them more flexibility to decide what they ought to be doing in the classroom because they are trained professionals. Leave them alone and let them teach.
“We are fortunate that we have some good facilities now here in Jasper County. I’m excited that we are on the road to building a new high school which is something that our community desperately needs. That will mean that our community will thrive and prosper in the future.
“I encourage people, especially young people to get involved. Decisions that are made are made best when they have maximum citizen input and the best people to do that are everyday people.
“That is where I started. I was teaching, a young angry teacher, angry about not being paid well and working hard and feeling like we deserved more respect. I was sitting in the faculty lounge and somebody said ‘why don’t you do something about it? Why don’t you run for local president of our teacher organization?’
“I said well I don’t know any better so I will. I did.
That of course has led to Mr. Newsome’s most recent position as the Executive Director of the Student Finance Commission were he managed some 200 employees, who he said were very dedicated.
Reporting to first Governor Miller, then Gov. Barnes, Mr. Newsome has traveled all over the United States and fielded calls from several countries about Georgia’s state funded scholarship programs.
“Last year 78 percent of all undergraduates received some kind of aid to go to school after high school. The state has a real commitment to our students.
“I had worked with the state level health care task force that was looking at the critical shortage of nurses and all the health related professions. It was something that was created as a partnership with the department of community health. We were able to devise service cancelable loans which means a student can get up to $4,500 to be a nurse or enter a health related profession and if he/she practice in Georgia, then they don’t have to pay it back.
“That’s when Georgia Southern gave me the honorary nursing degree,” Mr. Newsome laughed. “I promised them that I would not practice.”