Stranger’s advice launches Pellissippi State student success story

The time wasn’t Christmas, and Dannisha Davis was not even close to jumping off a bridge. But the woman who changed Davis’ life in the summer of 2004 could well have substituted for Clarence the Angel in “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

According to Davis, the woman was a complete stranger. She took Davis aside at the factory where they both worked, told her she could do better—and disappeared from the young mother’s life almost as quickly as she’d appeared.

Davis, who has just graduated from Pellissippi State Technical Community College, met her guardian angel one day that summer during lunch break. She remembers the woman only as “Theborah.”

Davis was the single mother of two young children, working at a local factory packaging spray cans, when Theborah approached her.

“She was a total, complete stranger,” Davis said. “We just worked at the same place together. She came along, not knowing me.”

The woman was intent on talking to Davis.

“What are you doing here?” Theborah asked. “You shouldn’t be working here.”

Somehow she recognized the potential in Davis. She advised her to get a college degree, and she told her to contact Pellissippi State to make it happen.

“She knew Pellissippi State was a community college,” Davis said, “and that it would be a good start for me, because she knew I needed to continue to work a full-time job.”

Theborah and Davis became closer co-workers over the next few weeks—before Davis left for a better job in Clinton and registered for her first classes at Pellissippi State.

Three years later, on May 4, 2007, Davis was decked out in a blue cap and gown, as her family watched her walk across the stage of the commencement ceremony.

Having earned her associate’s degree, she is transferring to East Tennessee State University this fall, with plans to graduate from there with a degree in nursing.

Even when her situation looked desperate—having two small children and an assembly-line job—Davis says she didn’t feel desperate. She says she has always had hope for her future, in spite of circumstances that would have shelved many others.

The 22-year-old credits her grandmother, Juanita Avery, for instilling the optimism in her that allowed her to succeed.

Her grandmother kept the baby while Davis participated in the middle school dance company and in high school while she danced and took part in band.

“I stayed late for practices because she kept my daughter. She allowed me to still experience being a kid, even though I had stepped out of being a kid. Without her, I wouldn’t have had a chance to be optimistic, because I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to experience all those things.”

Davis graduated from Austin-East High School with honors in 2002 and had planned to go to college “someday,” but she had never thought the time was right until that day when Theborah approached her.

She says she looked upon Theborah’s intervention as a sign.

Something, someone, told her to go for it. And she did.

“I was nervous that I wasn’t going to be able to do it,” she said. She says she wasn’t afraid of the schoolwork. She simply didn’t know if she could do it all: juggle a 40-hour-a-week job, two young children and night classes.

Davis started by taking two classes fall 2004. She continued working, and she applied for and received scholarship money from the Pellissippi State Foundation.

She got babysitting help from her grandmother and from her children’s grandmother.

She remembers her children saying, “We don’t want to you going to school again tonight” and “Mom, do you have to study again tonight?”

In spite of their pleas, she knew she had to continue on—for them and for herself. And, she says, they adjusted. After the first semester she changed her schedule: classes at 7:30 and 8:40 a.m., then off to work at Delta Apparel in Clinton.

Davis remembers Cheryl Leach, who was both her instructor and admissions advisor, as being particularly helpful. Her favorite teacher was Charles Cardwell, an assistant professor of philosophy.

“I can’t forget Gayle Wood (assistant to the director for student retention), who was my work-study supervisor,” she said. “I did work-study for the extra cash.

“And I joined TRiO Student Support Services. If you get accepted to the program, they buy your books for you, tutor you. I received two grants from TRiO as well,” she said. The grants allowed her to become a full-time student.

The TRiO office, located at the Pellissippi Campus on Hardin Valley Road, assists students by providing them with opportunities for career development, college planning, peer tutoring, transfer assistance, leadership development and success seminars.

Now, three and a half years after that pivotal conversation at the factory, Davis looks forward to moving with her children, Janae and Omarian, to Johnson City to begin nursing school at East Tennessee State University. After graduating, she plans to spend two additional years working in a critical-care unit, which will qualify her for admission into a three-year nurse anesthetist program.

“Another goal of mine is to move my grandmother to be with me, because she’s getting old. I plan to take care of her, because she took care of me.

“I also want to leave the country and take my children with me. I’d like my kids to experience, literally, the world. I’d like them to see that just because you made a mistake, you don’t have to give up. Having children at an early age is not the end of the road. It’s only a speed bump.

“You can’t be afraid of failure. You can’t not do something because you’re afraid to fail.”