Meet Nicole Sheppard.....VA PTA Historian

She asks, “Is who we are determined from where we came?” Her father was a US Navy Captain and her mother was French. She attended 10 different schools (or more maybe) but has no complaints in that her longest tour of duty was in Hawaii. Her freshman year in high school was near Paris, France and her sophomore year was spent in Belgium, before they were stationed in Virginia Beach. She earned a Bachelors Degree in Special  Education from Radford College and a Masters in Elementary Education from the University of Virginia. She feels that her wisest and most important career move was that as Mother-at-Home. Currently, she is the Library Manager for the Stewartsville Library, part of the Bedford County Public Library System.

She met her husband while student teaching and they recently celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary. They live on a small farm with many animals. Their son Justin is 28. The light of their life is their grandson Colten who is almost 2. Two is an even more fun age to explore as a grandparent….there is nothing terrible
about such exuberant joy and quest for learning….but thank goodness for the respite of nap time.

Nicole’s PTA career started in 1988 when her son entered kindergarten. She was in charge of the newsletter back when cut and paste was done with scissors and scotch tape. At her first Leadership Training Conference (LTC) she recalls past State President Janet Alley stating, “the 25 foot phone cord has revolutionized PTA volunteering” – Nicole asks, “what would she think about today’s many tools?” In this long and varied career she has served on nearly every committee and most officer positions at the Local, Council, District levels. On the Virginia PTA Board of Managers she has served as the Roanoke District Director and was the chair of the 85th State Convention (2006) in Roanoke.

Virginia PTA was chartered in Roanoke in 1921 and her renewed interest and the urge to make sure we documented and protected our Virginia PTA History became a passion for her. She is in the process of viewing the past Bulletins and creating a summary of our historic treasures which she hopes to one day soon have completed enough to offer to our membership via the Virginia PTA website.