The subject of this week’s 50th Anniversary profile doesn’t fit neatly into the alumni category or the Staff category. Bill Oldham, Community Education’s seventh and current Executive Director could be considered both. “I feel I have been involved with Community Education one way or another for most of my adult life.”
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Bill’s daughters, Abbey and Alex, went to the After-School program at McNeill Elementary starting in the late 1990s. Sparked by that connection, Oldham went on to serve on the Advisory Council and eventually the Board of Directors while continuing to work in hospital marketing. His “third career” plan was to work in non-profit management. (Oldham worked in broadcast television production upon graduating from WKU). “Deep in my heart, I have wanted to work at Community Ed for a long time. I’m very fortunate that things worked out the way I hoped they would.” Founding Executive Director Dr. Don Butler chaired the search committee that hired him.
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Three months after Oldham began in his current position, the COVID-19 pandemic shut down all programs operated by Community Education. “It completely blindsided me. I had several very dark months.” Oldham had two major challenges. “I wanted us back up and running so we could serve the families that count on us, and I wanted to care for the staff. It was a very difficult time for them.”
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Bill’s outside interests include his family, making craft lamps upcycling interesting bourbon bottles, and volunteering. Bill serves on the executive committee of the Bowling Green-Warren County Chapter of the NAACP and is the Board chair for Saturday Meals. A native of Indiana, Bill is very proud to be a Kentucky Colonel, having been nominated by his daughter Abbey.
At that time, kindergarten was only a half day. The Community Education program took care of students during the part of the day that students were not in class, allowing parents to work a full day.
After kindergarten became all day, Grubbs moved into the enrichment and volunteer coordinator position.
She developed a network of instructors who taught a wide range of classes.
The Martinsville, Va., native also was an incredible fundraiser.
One of the most successful programs that she started at Community Education, Stand For Children Day, remains a tradition providing children and their families with community resources. This year marks the 25th annual Stand For Children event.
Grubbs was passionate about education at every level.
When she retired, Community Education established a scholarship named in her honor at Western Kentucky University to be awarded each semester to a Community Education staff member.
Grubbs died in 2014 and is missed by the entire community.
After graduating in 1992, she managed a private daycare center provided for employees of a local business.
Several years later, she returned to Community Education as director of School-age programs from 1998 through 2008. Part of what brought her back to the agency was the chance to work closely with families and their children on a larger scope than she could in the private sector. Gentry left after purchasing Creative Learning Child Development Center in Bowling Green.
She credits her combined experiences at our agency and then Executive Director Debi Wade Jordan’s support as helping her take on that and other challenges.
“The Community Education staff, we were all a big family,” Gentry said. “That family helped me through my father’s passing, my becoming a single parent, and ultimately my decision to explore actually owning a childcare center.”
After six years, Gentry sold her business to embark on a different journey, allowing her to continue her passion of working with young people, including those outside her new community of Tell City, Ind.
She and her spouse Bryan Gentry acquired Taylor Tours, a company founded by her late father. Natalie serves as co-owner, vice-president, and hands-on tour escort for young adult school trips to destinations such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.
When Gentry is not traveling around the country with her Taylor Tours groups, she spends time with family, including her daughter, Taylor, who grew up in the midst of Community Education programs and also worked here while in college. Gentry enjoys her horses and dogs and is an avid golfer.
Vivian Foe was born in 1936 and grew up in Smiths Grove, Ky. She attended North Warren school, and had perfect attendance for 11 of her 12 years. After working in the private sector for a year, she returned to her first love of teaching and enrolled at Western Kentucky State College, now known as WKU.
Foe left home to teach in San Diego, California after earning her degree in 1959. “I wanted to go somewhere I had never been,” she said. This would be a recurring theme throughout her life.
She moved back to Kentucky to marry fellow teacher John Foe in August 1960. They have three daughters: Brookie Henry of Bowling Green, Marcia Wozniak of Victoria, Texas, and Lori Hughes of Frankfort, and three grandchildren: Ashton Henry, John Cole Wozniak, and Anne-Grayson Wozniak. One daughter and two grandchildren have carried on the family tradition and become teachers. A substitute teacher for several years, Foe returned to teaching full-time when their daughters were in junior high. She was at L.C. Curry when she was invited to join the Community Education Advisory Council.
Foe has served as chair of the Advisory Council and the Board of Directors, and has worked at nearly all of the 24 Stand for Children Days. She is particularly proud of the current facility on Westen Street that houses the organization. “We were able to purchase the property and remodel the existing building,” which was quite an accomplishment for a non-profit.
“The before and after-school programs provide safe places for children. That is very important,” she says, also mentioning the value of the Enrichment program. “I have enjoyed working with the staff at Community Education.”
A map in the Foe house has pins placed in all 50 states, and in the many countries the couple visited while teaching Vacation Bible School. There are 139 nativity scenes and 300 dolls from around the world. Each year the house is decorated with 18 Christmas trees, and it has been the location for the Community Education holiday potluck for many years. The couple once hosted an exchange teacher from Austria, where Foe returned later to teach.
In retirement, the Foes were active in AARP, Warren County Retired Teachers Association, and Woodmen Life. Foe has also been involved with the Bowling Green Women’s Club, Alpha Delta Kappa sorority, the Ombudsman program, Emmanuel Day Care board, and First Baptist Church. The Foes were married 57 years when John Foe died in 2017.
“I have seen many changes over the years to the schools and to Community Education,” Foe says with pride, knowing that she played an important role in the lives of many school-age children and their families.
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Milestones achieved during Schmalzbauer’s tenure include the first after-school program housed in Kentucky schools at McNeill Elementary in 1983, with a second program at Potter Gray Elementary in 1984. By 1991, after-school care expanded to seven sites.
Super Summer Club was first offered at two elementary schools in 1991.
Schmalzbauer is most proud of the Bowling Green-Warren County Rape Crisis and Prevention Center (now known as Hope Harbor,) which Community Education helped establish in 1985.
“A friend who had been raped years earlier was appalled by the lack of resources available to survivors of traumatic events such as hers,” Schmalzbauer said. “We secured funding, advertised for a volunteer director, and opened an office next to ours in the former High Street School facility.” The center started with $500 in funds from the local board of realtors. Schmalzbauer and her friend covered every shift on the crisis line until they could recruit volunteers. The 24/7 crisis line is a critical service Hope Harbor provides today.
Originally from St. Paul, Minn., Schmalzbauer earned a bachelor’s degree in education in Wisconsin and a master’s degree in adult learning from Western Kentucky University.
Schmalzbauer left Bowling Green to become the state community education consultant, overseeing all the community education programs in Kentucky for the Department of Education.
Now retired, Schmalzbauer and Gippy Graham, who held the first community education position at the state level and is credited with facilitating the growth of community education throughout the commonwealth, live in Florida, where she teaches yoga, stretching, and water aerobics. Schmalzbauer has two children and two grandchildren.