BY CLIFF SMELLEY
Linda Bennet and Vivian Ramseur were the honorees at the Bradford County Education Foundation’s seventh annual Leave a Legacy event, which was held Aug. 28 at Starke’s Madison Street Baptist Church.
Video interviews and a question-and-answer session led by Tatum Davis were the highlights of the event, which also included a fundraising dessert dash and performances by Bradford High School band students.
Bradford County Superintendent of Schools Will Hartley opened the event, speaking to the contributions Bennett and Ramseur made in the classroom and in their community.
“God puts all of us on earth for a reason, and there is no doubt why these two women were put here,” Hartley said. “They have certainly fulfilled their purpose and continue to do that here on this earth. We appreciate them so much.”
Linda Bennett
Bennett’s family moved from Gainesville to Brooker prior to her 10th-grade year, which she began at Bradford High School.
Davis asked Bennett about the transition from living in Gainesville to living in Brooker and attending BHS. Bennett said it was a hard transition, but one that was probably easier for her sister, Sandra Edwards Hazen.
“I was shy and reserved, and she was very outgoing and boisterous,” Bennett said.
It was at BHS where Bennett met Joey, who would become her husband. Bennett said Joey’s sense of humor and love for life won her over. They married after graduating from BHS at the age of 19 and moved to Lawtey.
Life after BHS also included going to school at the University of Florida, where Bennett earned her bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education in 1978.
“Well, the sad news was I graduated in December, and there was only one opening in January in the county,” Bennett said. “That was at Bradford Middle School.”
Bennett said she discovered that she loved teaching middle-school students.
“I’d found my niche,” she said, adding, “I have so many good memories of teaching math to middle-school kids.”
Three sons were born to the Bennetts in the 1980s: Kyle, Matt and Scott.
“Obviously, with three boys, we spent a lot of time on the baseball field,” Bennett said. “We grew our family in the church. We’re a family of strong faith.”
Scott died from injuries sustained in a vehicle accident in 2005, which led to Bennett taking time off from work.
Bennett said when she eventually returned to work, the students helped her instead of her helping them.
“I got 3,000 hugs a day,” she said. “Every child would hug my neck.”
The students cared for her, and she cared for them. Bennett said she remembers one student she had who always “seemed to be going through some things.” After a few weeks, she asked him if anything was troubling him. He responded that his parents were going through a divorce.
It’s harder for teachers today to have such conversations with students and find out what kinds of things they’re going through.
“Teachers are challenged with so many needs that they’re hard to pinpoint,” Bennett said. “I was able to pinpoint some needs, but today, you really can’t do that. Kids come to school with so many broken pieces, and they need so much more than just academics.”
Bennett, who retired after 33 years of teaching, enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, gardening, crafts, refinishing furniture and working in her church.
“God is always my first priority,” she said.
She also began working for Bradford Community for Schools. That and other activities have been important since Joey passed away in 2013.
“It’s good for me to stay busy,” Bennett said.
Davis asked Bennett what advice she would give new teachers.
“I always thought when I first started teaching, I took life too seriously,” Bennett said. “I just felt like I got bogged down because of that. I really ironically learned to laugh when I lost my son. It was either you laugh, or you die.”
Teachers have a big burden, Bennett said, so she encourages them to not let the job overwhelm them. The key, she said, is to lighten up and laugh every now and then.
Bennett said she would also tell new teachers to get to know their students and to build relationships with them.
“Even with middle-schoolers, they’re not going to learn from you unless they know you care about them,” Bennett said, adding, “They have to know that we care first, and all that rigorous stuff we do is secondary.”
If new teachers are fellow believers, Bennett has another piece of advice.
“Being a Christian, I think it’s important to pray for our kids,” she said.
Vivian Ramseur
Ramseur, the daughter of Freddie and Emma Lou Bell, was born at Bradford Hospital. She and her siblings were the first Black children to integrate the school in Lawtey.
After graduating from BHS in 1980, Ramseur worked with Project PASS at the Bradford County School Board office while attending Santa Fe College at night. Ramseur would eventually transfer to Clark College in Atlanta.
While in Atlanta, she met her future husband, Byron, on the subway.
“I met my husband in 1983. We got married in 1984,” Ramseur said. “My mom’s first request was, ‘You’ve got to make sure you graduate from college.’ So, I did do that.”
Ramseur graduated with her bachelor’s in Early Childhood Education in 1986.
While her children — Emmali, James and Calvin — were small, Ramseur went to real-estate school. She worked as a buyer for the Ritz Carlton Hotel Atlanta and as an after-school teacher with Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church. Ramseur also trained as a florist with Robb’s Flowers of the Field.
Ramseur said she and her family began attending First Baptist Church of Atlanta, where her husband was called into the ministry.
She and her family moved to Lawtey in 2000 to help care for her mother.
Ramseur said she remembered telling her brother the year before making that move that she would never return to Lawtey. She said she learned that you never tell God what you’re going to do or are not going to do.
When Davis asked Ramseur about making the transition to living in Lawtey again after living in Atlanta, she said that in Atlanta one “can go half a mile down the road, and you’re at the store.” She added that if you want to eat somewhere at midnight in Atlanta, you have options.
Also, if your vehicle won’t work, you’ve got public transportation in Atlanta.
“That’s not here,” Ramseur said of Lawtey. “This is rural. Very rural.”
It was a big transition for her, Ramseur said, but she added, “The one thing I didn’t have in Atlanta that I have here is my family and my loved ones. That was a plus — to have my family.”
Ramseur began teaching at Bradford Elementary School in 2002 when it was known as Southside. Aside from four years at the former school in Hampton, she spent her entire career at Southside/Bradford until retiring at the end of the 2024-25 year.
“I was blessed to have taught some amazing students,” Ramseur said. “Some of them were so cotton-picking smart. I loved it — loved it, loved it, loved it.”
Ramseur remembered a funny incident that occurred during her second year of teaching. She’d always give her students pep talks on Fridays before they left school for the day, telling them to be good and kind to their parents and to do what their parents ask them to do without making them ask more than once.
She’d close her pep talks by saying, “I want you to know I love you.”
During this one particular incident, a student exclaimed, “You love us?!” When Ramseur said that she did indeed love all of them, the student responded by saying, “That’s so nice. I didn’t know you loved us.”
“Sometimes we need to make sure our kids hear that — that they’re loved — because they may not hear it all the time,” Ramseur said.
Davis asked Ramseur what she looked forward to in retirement. She said the first thing was learning how to rest, something she admitted she hasn’t been good at. She said since she was the oldest girl among her siblings, she was always doing something, which continued throughout her life.
“I’m looking forward to rest, which I have gotten and is wonderful,” Ramseur said.
Ramseur said she looks forward to being Grandma and encouraging her son James and his fiancé that once they get married, they need to give her more grandchildren. She wants to read more books and take vacations. She and her husband would like to go back to Europe, where they went last year for their 40th anniversary.
Ramseur also looks forward to observing how her former students are doing.
“You don’t forget your kids,” she said. I’m looking forward to opening the Bradford County Telegraph at the end of the school year and picking out all the kids I taught (in the paper’s graduation issue).”
When Davis asked Ramseur what advice she’d give new teachers, she said it would be to tell them to find a mentor teacher who they can confide in, pray with and get help from.
Ramseur said she’d also tell teachers that their responsibility isn’t just teaching.
“You get kids who come to school who may not have eaten that morning. Who may not have had someone say, ‘I love you.’ Someone who may never have had anyone teach them who Jesus is. That might be one of our responsibilities that you don’t even know you have.”
Ramseur said she remembered when School Board Member Randy Jones visited her classroom. She told him she may have to be fired because if students ask her about Jesus, she’s going to tell them.
“That’s going to be the one thing that carries them, not just in school, but for the rest of their lives,” Ramseur said. “We’re trying to build lives here.”
Ramseur concluded her question-and-answer session with Davis by saying that it’s important for students to get to know their teachers. For example, she taught her kids sign language because that was a part of her life since her son Calvin is deaf.
With that in mind, Ramseur said she’d tell new teachers, “You need to make sure you give some of these kids something other than your education. Give them you.”
