Scholarship to honor much-beloved teachers
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Before losing a long, hard-fought battle to cancer in 2003, former North Mecklenburg High School teacher Jean Holtzclaw left a note behind for her loved ones.
“You will give my life meaning, if you do not mourn me too long.”
The words are also etched on her tombstone, and for those who knew her, they sum up the legacy of a woman remembered as “a born teacher” who loved life and gave much of it to education. It is this legacy that North Mecklenburg alumni and Holtzclaw’s family are hoping to preserve.“She left her loved ones with a truly inspirational legacy,” says granddaughter Hailey Knight. That inspiration is not only felt by her family, but by her charges back in the day as well. One of Holtzclaw’s former students, Jill Gazzaway, is working with the Foundation of the Carolinas to establish a memorial scholarship in Holtzclaw’s, as well as late biology teacher Jerry Taylor’s, honor.While their subjects were worlds apart — Holtzclaw taught French for 33 years and Taylor biology for 29 — they both radiated a strong passion for life, their respective disciplines, and the art of teaching itself.“They were fixtures in the school,” says Gazzaway.Gazzaway remembers Holtzclaw and Taylor arriving before the sun rose and leaving well after it set. Holtzclaw, herself a North Mecklenburg graduate, headed the foreign language department for many years, and during semester and summer breaks, she would often take students overseas for study abroad. Her efforts earned her an array of professional awards, most notably North Mecklenburg’s Teacher of the Year.She’s also remembered as being a woman of strong faith. She volunteered as an elder, a deacon, and as the chairwoman of Christian education at her church, Derita Presbyterian in Charlotte. Her family and friends describe her as “ generous and inspirational,” and Knight remembers her as “beautiful and glowing to all who crossed her path.”
Taylor loved biology and his students, but like a thriving root system, his interests at the school spread beyond the study of science in the classroom. He advised the school’s chapter of Students Against Drunk Driving (SADD) and lent a guiding hand to North Meck’s student council. He also founded the school’s now very successful and widely known soccer program.
His love of nature was well known, and extended beyond North Meck’s brick walls. His daughter, Sallie Taylor Wallace, says Taylor was known to grow exotic plants, and that interest led him to volunteer his time at UNC Charlotte’s biology department herbarium. He also volunteered for the university’s Alumni Board of Directors.
When away from the North Meck grounds, he, like Holtzclaw, kept active in his faith. Taylor volunteered as a church elder and deacon at Gilead Associate Reformed Presbyterian (ARP) Church in Huntersville. Having also served in the U.S. Navy in Vietnam, service in all aspects was, quite simply, part of his biology. “He always felt it was important to give back to the community,” says Wallace.
Both Holtzclaw and Taylor are fondly remembered among North Meck alumni and the surrounding community. In conjunction with the Holtzclaw and Taylor families, Gazzaway thought the best way to secure those cherished memories was to ensure their passion for teaching lived on through an educational scholarship.
“They touched so many people’s lives, and we decided we wanted to honor them,” she says. “The primary thing that the families wanted is for the scholarship to go to a graduating senior going into education.”
Gazzaway says she hopes funds will be in place to award a member of the Class of 2008 the first Teacher’s Memorial Scholarship (TMS). She says the North Mecklenburg Alumni Association also has a similar memorial scholarship, but the TMS is unique as it is named particularly for Holtzclaw and Taylor, and candidates must anticipate a career in education.
Current plans set the scholarship at $5,000, to be awarded in renewable increments of $1,250 per school year for four years. Gazzaway says making the scholarship renewable will allow for the grantors to keep in touch with the recipients. “We want to maintain a relationship with the scholarship winners,” she says.
Gazzaway encourages North Meck alumni and anyone else touched by Holtzclaw’s and Taylor’s legacies to consider donating to the endowment. She and other scholarship organizers hope to rally enough support to continue granting the scholarship to prospective teachers for generations to come.
“We want for it to be an endowment,” she says. “We want this scholarship to last forever.”