Rita Kitts

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.