Education key to building future for children

RICHMOND, Ind. -- Lora McGowan knows what motivates her: He's 11 months old, has brown eyes and when he smiles -- he's a bit of a flirt and smiles often -- he shows off his six teeth.\nMcGowan, 21, is working and going to IU East because she wants to provide a better life for her son, Justin Johnson.\n"I don't want him to know what hard, hard times are," said McGowan, sitting in her modest two-bedroom apartment in Richmond as her son toddles around, bracing himself on the coffee table. "I want him to be a little bit spoiled."\nAnd to do that McGowan knows having an education is key. She is studying to be a nurse, but at one point never thought she would finish high school. McGowan says she has been employed since she was 14 and has held service jobs at places like Burger King, J.C. Penney and CVS Pharmacy.\nHolding Justin and sitting on the couch in her living room, McGowan says that were it not for her education she's sure she'd be living off the charity of others.\n"I probably wouldn't have amounted to anything," she said.\nMcGowan is quick to say she never knew hard times as a child, either. Her mother and stepfather worked to provide a comfortable life for her.\n"When I was growing up, I had everything I needed and the majority of what I wanted," she said.\nBut McGowan's mother, 37-year-old Debbie Sharits, said her daughter was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Sharits knows the importance of education. She dropped out of Richmond High School.\n"I was 16 years old, pregnant and I knew everything there was to know," she said.\nSharits later went back and earned her General Educational Development degree. She said she didn't want to see her young daughter make the same mistakes she did.\n"I knew what a struggle it was for me, and I didn't want her to go through it, too," said Sharits, who is now a manager at a doctor's office.\nLooking back over the last eight or nine years -- the trouble at Richmond Community Schools, a turbulent relationship with her mother and struggles with drug and alcohol abuse -- McGowan takes responsibility for her actions, though she used to blame others.\n"Sometime I used my mom and biological father as a crutch, saying, 'They didn't graduate -- I don't have to,'" she said. "But it was just poor choices I made on my own."\nAn honor roll student in elementary and middle school, McGowan, her mom said, was nearly perfect.\n"You couldn't have asked for a better kid," Sharits said. "She was my bookworm."\nBut when McGowan entered RHS, something changed, she and her mother agree.\n"When she hit her freshman year, that's when it all fell apart," Sharits said.\nMcGowan said she started hanging out with the wrong crowd and letting others make decisions -- like skipping school -- for her.\n"Ditching was my No. 1 priority," she said.\nAt the same time that her grades and attendance were slipping, her relationship with her mother was deteriorating.\n"It was teen-daughter-and-mother stuff, just to an extreme," McGowan said.\nSharits said she couldn't control her daughter and didn't know what to do.\n"It got to the point where I couldn't do anything with her," Sharits said. "I said 'You know my address, you know my phone number, when you're ready to change, I'm here.'"\nMcGowan moved in with a series of family friends but continued to skip school.\nShe said she entered her sophomore year of high school with almost no credits because she had failed so many classes. McGowan also started experimenting with drugs and alcohol her freshman year.\n"I found out I really liked alcohol a lot," she said.\nHer substance abuse progressed through her second year in high school.\nMidway through sophomore year, McGowan said her mother, who she was still in contact with, pulled her from RHS and put into the alternative high school program at the FIND Center.\n"I hated it there, but I hated the whole world," McGowan said. "I just wanted to hang out with my friends."\nLora was one of the first students in the alternative program when it started in 1997, said Cheryl Amos, coordinator of Adult and Alternative Education at Richmond Community Schools.\nAmos and English teacher Dixie Robinson remember McGowan was never afraid to express her displeasure or frustration.\n"I can still remember the day Lora had a screaming hissy fit in class," Amos said.\nMcGowan remembers that, too.\n"I think I was quitting school about every other day," she said.\nBut she always went back. She said the tough love from her teachers, despite her hissy fits and temper tantrums, was just what she needed.\n"When she first came she was about ready to drop out of school," Robinson said. "At first she had a lot of difficulty focusing, making a commitment toward graduation or even finishing classes. We just kept pushing her and pushing her. She'd lose it every once and a while, but she always came back and had a good attitude."\nMcGowan also cleaned herself up while at FIND Center. She remembers waking up one day and looking in the mirror.\n"I didn't like what I saw," she said.\nSo she called her mom and asked for help. Her mom helped her enroll in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous the summer before her junior year. She's been clean since.\nMcGowan ended up graduating with her high school diploma from RHS midterm of her senior year.\n"I worked and I worked and I hustled and I hustled and I did it," she said. "I honestly didn't think I could do it."\nWith the exception of her son, McGowan said her diploma, displayed in her living room, is her pride and joy.\n"I keep it posted for everyone to see," she said.\nMcGowan started working in March at Pinehurst Nursing Home in Centerville as a dietician.\n"They're really good about working with my schedule with school and daycare," she said.\nShe also is attending Indiana University East part-time.\nAnd she wants to be able to take Justin to Disney World for his fifth birthday. Between rent, her car, groceries and diapers, money is tight every month. She does get some help through WIC, a nutrition program for young children, and Justin has health insurance through his father's employer.\nMcGowan and Sharits' relationship also has improved.\n"She's my best friend, I tell her anything and everything," McGowan said.\nSharits said she's proud of her daughter and her independence.\n"Once in a great while I slip her $10 or $15, but she's made her own bed and she's lying in it," Sharits said.\nBut if given the opportunity, McGowan wouldn't change a thing about her life or how she got to this point.\n"(Sometimes) I wish I had waited (to have a child), but who's to say if I hadn't had Justin, I would be going back to school?\n"I wouldn't change a single thing. It's made me who I am today. When I look at myself in the mirror, I am proud of who I am. I wouldn't change a single thing, never."\nIf 21-year-old McGowan were able to go back in time and see herself as a freshman at Richmond High School, this is what she'd say:\n"Pick your friends wisely, stand your ground and don't let people make decisions for you. Be a leader, not a follower. Think about your actions and their consequences. Keep your head up and don't lose faith in yourself. I lost faith in myself a lot in my high school years"