Donna Mills Gore-Ellis

Hi! My name is Donna Mills Gore-Ellis and I’m a graduate of the Class of 1967. My dad was a petroleum engineer, so our family moved about every two years. I now live in Midland, Texas, but I have lived in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, Wyoming, Venezuela, California, Washington state, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and places in between. 

My family was living in Anaco, Venezuela, when my older sister finished the eighth grade. At that time, it was customary for Americans living abroad to send their children to boarding schools in the States or Europe to complete their high school education. My parents decided that my sister, Karen, was to attend The Radford School for Girls in September 1961. My sister and I were very close and had not been separated during our short time on earth. Karen called my mother every night and cried and cried.  She finally told my mother if I didn’t go to board there too, she would run away from school. 

It was decided I would become a boarding student in the middle of my seventh-grade year. My sister and I had separate rooms in what we called New Dorm. We finished the semester at Radford and my sister refused to return. We enrolled in classes in Odessa, Texas. Karen graduated from Permian High School in 1965 and had sufficiently matured to go to Texas Women’s University on her own. I had just finished my sophomore year at Permian and began contemplating my next steps in education.  After living overseas, I never felt quite in tune with the students in Odessa. There is a great divide in worldview to someone who has never lived out of the country. I had met and associated with girls who were living overseas and were boarding at Radford. Plus, public school was not challenging scholastically. I decided to return to Radford as a boarder for my junior and senior years. 

What an excellent choice that was! I received an excellent and rigorous education with low teacher-to- student ratio not to mention many life lessons and enduring friendships. By far one of my greatest honors and privileges was to meet and interact with Dr. Templin. Beyond the stern wisdom was a grace and keen intelligence that has created in me immeasurable curiosity and discovery and the joy of research into all things Radford. 

One of the huge differences I noticed in boarding school was the attitude of the individual. Since I had made the decision to return, I had a very positive attitude towards my classes, the rules, traditions, and etiquette that were imposed. Many of the boarders had been forced to attend and fiercely opposed the education and restrictions that were offered. I began to see that your attitude is greatly affected by your willingness to open yourself to all opportunities. In other words, you will be as happy as you make up your mind to be.

Hopefully each of you, no matter what your circumstances, will decide to open yourself to the enormous possibilities and opportunities that Radford School has to offer scholastically, socially, communally, and physically. Embrace the changes in life and learn from them. In the words of Dr. Lucinda de Leftwich Templin, “The sky’s the limit!”.