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UNCG School of Education Honors Alumni

GREENSBORO – The University of North Carolina at Greensboro School of Education has honored four alumni – Ginger Godard Parnell, Rita Rice Ledford, Melissa Murray Nixon and Jim Causby – for their professional accomplishments.

Ginger Godard Parnell and Rita Rice Ledford, the founders of a school for students with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders, received the Outstanding Achievement Alumni Award.

Parnell and Ledford earned master’s degrees in special education at UNCG in 1985. Two years later, they established the school now known as Guilford Day School. Guilford Day, on Horsepen Creek Road in Greensboro, serves 134 students from two states and nine counties in grades 1-12. Dr. Carolyn D. Boyles, a professor in the School of Education, said 85 percent of the school’s students attend college, compared to about 20 percent of public school students with similar learning disabilities.

Parnell and Ledford continue to work at the school. Parnell is the curriculum specialist, and Ledford is the head of development.

Melissa Murray Nixon, the principal of Foust Elementary in Greensboro, received the Early Career Alumni Award. Nixon earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education in 1995 and a master’s degree in school administration in 2001, both from UNCG.

Nixon became the principal at Foust in 2002 when she was 29 years old. At the time, she was the second-youngest of more than 100 public school principals in Guilford County. A 1998 survey by the National Association for Elementary School Principals indicated that only 1.3 percent of principals were younger than 35.

In November 2002, Nixon helped foil a would-be thief. When she spotted a stranger in the halls of her school, she stalled him and signaled a teacher to call the police. The man matched the description of a man who had stolen wallets and checkbooks from other local schools. Though the man fled on foot and in a cab, police tracked him down and arrested him, thanks to Nixon’s quick thinking.

James Frank Causby, superintendent of Johnston County Schools, received the Distinguished Career Alumni Award. He earned his doctorate in education administration at UNCG in 1988.

With Causby at the helm, the school system has moved from the bottom third into the top 10 percent in the state. He was named the state’s superintendent of the year in 1991, 1998 and 2001.

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