Pasadena Group Rewards 5 Who Stuck With Their Studies

When Angela Simmons started high school, studying was the last thing on her agenda. Instead, she preferred to ditch school with her friends and just hang out, she says.

In a few weeks, however, Simmons will graduate from John Marshall Secondary School in Pasadena with an A average. She starts college at Cal State Northridge this summer.

Simmons, 17, is one of five black Pasadena high school students to be honored today with $750 Jackie Robinson Merit awards from the community group Women in Action. Other Robinson award recipients to be honored at today’s luncheon at the Pasadena Hilton are: Regina Brown of Blair High School, Yvette Hylton of Pasadena High School, Aishah Bailer of Blair High School and Erica Mayweather of John Muir High School.

In addition, Fessie Verrett-McChristian of Pasadena City College will receive Women in Action’s $750 Ruth Valentine Award, established in 1987 to “encourage black women to return to higher education and achieve their life goals.”

The Jackie Robinson Award was established to recognize “graduating seniors who have demonstrated . . . perseverance, faith, ambition and pride . . . to redirect their efforts toward . . . self-improvement.” The awards are presented annually to black students, male or female, whose school counselors nominate them.

Eighty-four students have received the award since it was started in 1973 by Women in Action. The community organization was founded in 1971 by a group of black women in Pasadena who wanted to increase minority representation in government.

“These students start off with bad study habits, or they just don’t care about the future, or maybe they have a lot personal problems, but along the way something happens, and their direction changes,” said Gloria Mims, chairwoman of Women in Action’s education committee. “Our purpose is to keep these students on track. We want to show them that someone cares and values their achievements.”

All the students honored say the award means a lot more than money.

“It’s an indication of what you have accomplished and continue to accomplish,” said Brown, 18. “It gives you incentive to continue your education.”

Brown said the transition from junior high school to high school was difficult. She was getting C’s and D’s, she said, because she cared “more about boys than school.”

Bailer, 17, said it wasn’t a lack of motivation that held her back. She has dyslexia but didn’t know it until she was tested during her junior year in high school.

“It was so frustrating. . . . I couldn’t remember all the things said in class, and I couldn’t read as well as the others,” Bailer said. “I always thought that I was just dumb.”

Bailer will start at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles this summer. She hopes to obtain a degree in fashion design.

Simmons credits Nancy Cash, her school’s drill team adviser, with giving her the incentive to do better in school.

“When I first started high school, I didn’t realize just how important education was,” Simmons said. “All I wanted to do was be with my friends and do the things they did.”

After she joined Cash’s drill team, however, Simmons’ attitude changed.

“We talked a lot, and she would tell me over and over that I had a lot of potential,” Simmons recalled. “She redirected my attention.”

“Mama C,” as Simmons affectionately refers to Cash, “helped me learn within my self that I could do anything I wanted to do.”

Verrett-McChristian, 37, recipient of the Ruth Valentine Award, started college two years ago.

She graduated from high school in 1970, but her parents couldn’t afford college. Her first husband died; a second marriage ended in divorce. By the time she moved to California from Illinois in 1986, she had three young children and was financially drained.

She enrolled at Pasadena City College “to begin a new life,” she said. In a few weeks, she will receive her associate of arts degree in social science and will attend UC Berkeley in the fall for her bachelor’s degree in social welfare.

“I want to use my experience to be an example for others in the same situation,” Verrett-McChristian said. “There is always hope. You just have to dig inside yourself to find it.

“There is so much support out there for returning students,” she added. “I feel like I am a better mother and a better person now. After the divorce, I was crumbled. . . . College gave me my self-esteem back.”

Promoting self-esteem is only one aim of Women in Action. It also sponsors career days, supports local youth organizations and contributes annually to the United Negro College Fund.