CORNING, Ohio \u2013 \u201cThanks for giving us 32 years of your life.\u201d That\u2019s what one student wrote in a book presented to Janice \u201cJan\u201d Norris when she retired from Southern Local Schools in 2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard Norris keeps that tribute to his wife close by \u2013 and is writing the next chapter in Jan\u2019s story of giving to Southern Perry County students. He recently created a scholarship that honors her legacy and continues what they as a couple started 55 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJan and I came here with the stated agreement that we would stay for three or four years, and then we\u2019d move on,\u201d Richard recalls of their 1968 arrival in Southeast Ohio. \u201cAnd with a stated purpose: to expand the students\u2019 horizons and try to expose them to a bigger world, rich in experience and beauty. For some students growing up here, their eyes don\u2019t reach anywhere near the horizon of what can be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Janice E. Norris Memorial Scholarship, a fund within the Southern Perry County Academic Endowment Fund (SPCAEF) and created through the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio (FAO), will support the postsecondary educational pursuits of Southern Perry County students, who Jan and Richard both taught for 32 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis scholarship is a way to honor what Jan had done for these kids and to help the kids,\u201d Richard says. \u201cAnd it goes back to broadening horizons. All education and all travel broaden. The need for the students as I knew them, and I think it\u2019s still there, was to see the world in a bigger frame.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He and Jan set out to see the world in a bigger frame when they left their native Northwest Ohio the day after graduating from the University of Toledo to pursue opportunities in Southeast Ohio \u2013 a place that captured Richard\u2019s heart as a child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI fell in love with the trees and the land. I loved the forested areas and the wilderness,\u201d Richard remembers of the weekend getaways his family occasionally took to Lake Hope State Park in Vinton County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They both found jobs in Southern Perry County. Jan was a sixth-grade teacher at Corning Elementary School and Millcreek Middle School when the district consolidated decades later. Richard was a Spanish teacher \u2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
the first foreign language educator the district had in two years \u2013 at Miller High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Four years after arriving in Appalachian Ohio \u2013 about the time they had planned to move on \u2013 the couple started planting deeper roots here. In 1972, they purchased 40 acres outside Glouster, building a permanent home and a legacy in the field of horticulture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the late 1980s, Richard began crossbreeding daylilies, which led him and Jan to co-found Ashwood Garden Daylilies, with Richard creating new varieties of the flower guided by Jan\u2019s eye for color and design. To date, Richard has brought more than 100 daylily cultivars to market, including the first daylily to change color over the course of a day and a daylily named in honor of Joe Burrow \u2013 the proceeds of which benefit food pantries in Perry, Athens, and Meigs counties. He currently has a daylily on the shortlist for the Stout Silver Medal, the highest award a cultivar and daylily can receive internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe just found a life that satisfied us,\u201d Richard says. \u201cI was in my element right here with this land. I think Jan was, too.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While they were nurturing nature in Northern Athens County, they were also nurturing the young minds of Southern Perry County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the course of their careers, Richard caught glimpses of Jan\u2019s impact on the students, noting that she was \u201ca brilliant woman and an extraordinary teacher.\u201d But it was after Jan passed away in January 2022 that he saw in new ways the impact they both had made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was Jan\u2019s hospice nurse, one of his former students, who brought back a distant but fond memory from Richard\u2019s teaching career. The nurse\u2019s sister was one of Richard\u2019s former Spanish students and reconnected with him after hearing of Jan\u2019s passing. During that conversation, the student \u2013 now an associate professor \u2013 recalled the day Richard pulled her out of another class to congratulate her on placing second in Southeast Ohio in third-year Spanish, a regionwide competition in which she scored higher than all but one native Spanish-speaking students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShe told me that was the turning point in her life. She knew then that she could do it \u2013 in the broadest sense of the word. \u2026 I knew that (she) had done well in life but to feel as though I had an effect!\u201d Richard says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During a blood drive that spring at Miller High School, Richard encountered one of Jan\u2019s former students who had transferred into his wife\u2019s classroom<\/p>\n\n\n\n
due to bullying in another school. That former student told Richard how Jan\u2019s concern for her well-being paved the way for the first time she could remember that she wasn\u2019t bullied \u2013 and how it changed her life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI was touched as she was touched,\u201d Richard says of the conversation. \u201cI knew the skeleton of the story, but I had not seen the emotional impact.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The two started discussing another element of the blood drive: to raise money for student scholarships, prompting Richard to ask how he could help. Jan\u2019s former student replied, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you establish a scholarship in Mrs. Norris\u2019 name?\u201d Shortly thereafter, Richard was meeting with former students Missy Jones of the SPCAEF board and Sherri Simons, director of outreach at FAO, to set up the scholarship in Jan\u2019s memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He hopes the scholarship will help open the doors to postsecondary education \u2013 be it a two- or four-year degree or skilled workforce training \u2013 for students in need, much as it did for Jan, who benefited from a Toledo Teachers Association Scholarship. The scholarship \u2013 the only one given that year \u2013 paid for a full four years of college, allowing Jan to care for her grandmother, who was disabled from a stroke, and devote herself to her studies. Jan graduated from the University of Toledo with honors as one of the first two education majors enrolled in the university\u2019s Honors College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSouthern Local is such a stable community, so the majority of the students have at least one parent, maybe even a grandparent, that was Jan\u2019s student,\u201d Richard says. \u201cI hope that when students receive this scholarship that it sparks a discussion of the kind of teacher that Jan was, that they remember who she was.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Richard also hopes those memories and this scholarship will be a catalyst for others to support students in the community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPerhaps this will inspire somebody to do something parallel, or maybe a former student of mine or Jan\u2019s might say, \u2018I appreciated Mrs. Norris, and I\u2019ll put $10 into the scholarship fund,\u2019\u201d Richard says. \u201cMaybe we can start a little trend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To support the Janice E. Norris Memorial Scholarship, visit https:\/\/tinyurl.com\/NorrisScholarship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For information on how you can help create educational opportunities for students in Appalachian Ohio, visit www.AppalachianOhio.org or contact FAO at info@ffao.org or 740.753.1111.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
CORNING, Ohio \u2013 \u201cThanks for giving us 32 years of your life.\u201d That\u2019s what one student wrote in a book presented to Janice \u201cJan\u201d Norris when she retired from Southern Local Schools in 2000. Richard Norris keeps that tribute to his wife close by \u2013 and is writing the next chapter in Jan\u2019s story of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"1,10,11,12,129,133","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,20],"class_list":["post-219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-perry","category-scholarships"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n