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By Priscilla Greear, Staff Writer
LAGRANGE—For her academic achievement and dedicated service
to the community, LaGrange College named 84-year-old Rita Kitts to its
“Wall of Outstanding Alumni” for the 2000-2001 academic year.
The Wall of Outstanding Alumni is displayed on the second floor of
the school’s Smith Hall. All honorees have distinguished themselves in
their chosen professions and in their communities. Kitts and four others were
honored at a luncheon at the school in May and their photos are featured on a
plaque until October, after which five other alumni will be named. Ten alumni
have been honored yearly since 1994.
Kitts, a parishioner at St. Peter’s Church, LaGrange, earned
a bachelor of arts degree in English in 1992 at the age of 75. She has
continued to take classes at the four-year liberal arts college and is now
taking a class in medieval church history. Now retired, she worked for 38 years
as a secretary at the Roosevelt Institute in Warm Springs. At St. Peter’s,
she serves as a lector, eucharistic minister to the sick, on the vocations
committee and in other areas. In the larger community she’s a volunteer at
West Georgia Medical Center, a tutor for the second grade at Ethel Kight
Elementary School, secretary for the LaGrange Council of Church Women and in
the LaGrange College Alumnae Club.
Kitts was grateful for the recognition. “It’s a humbling
experience. I haven’t done anything to my knowledge to warrant such an
honor. Even the fact that I’m associated with the college has been a great
privilege. I just can’t say enough about the value this college education
has been and continues to be,” she said.
That value of education for Kitts includes a greater appreciation
of “my Creator, of creation and of other people and of myself,” she
said. “I think learning is exciting because it’s a search for truth
and God is truth.”
Kitts enjoys “helping to serve other people” and faith
is the spark plug for all her service. “John’s Gospel said Christ
came to help us to live life abundantly and I think that’s what we ought
to try to do, live it to the utmost,” she said. “I just can’t
visualize—as long as my health holds out—not being involved. But the
only problem is if you get involved in too many things. That doesn’t work
out.”
Affiliated with the United Methodist Church, LaGrange offers 25
majors in the baccalaureate degree and graduate programs in business
administration and education. With about 1,000 students, it’s the oldest
private college in Georgia. |
