Published: October 02, 2008 04:26 pm         

Grand marshals pegged for CCHS homecoming Oct. 9

Cumberland County High School is very excited to announce this year's honorary grand marshals for the homecoming parade set for Thursday, Oct. 9, at 5:30. The honorary grand marshals are Velma Buck, Brenda McDonald, Linda Milam and Wilma Raper. All four of these current and former teachers have taught at least 40 years at CCHS. It is a remarkable thing to have four people who have taught that long at the same. These women have been a great contribution to the faculty of CCHS and have contributed to the education of many Cumberland County students.

Velma Buck graduated from CCHS when it was still across from the hospital. She has a BS and MA degree from Vanderbilt/Peabody. She is currently teaching dual calculus 1 and 2, dual pre-calculus, dual statistics and advanced algebra and trigonometry. She has taught about every math course there is during the 43 years she's been teaching. She also taught math for many years at Roane State Community College.

Besides teaching math, Buck was the CCHS Lady Jets basketball coach for 12 years. She is married to Larry Buck, who was a principal and teacher in Cumberland County for 37 years. She has one daughter, Tina, and two sons, Rick and CW. She also has two beautiful granddaughters, Madison and Ainsley Foster.

Brenda McDonald also graduated from CCHS where she won the business award. She did her graduate work at Tennessee Tech and got her vocational certification at UT. She began teaching in 1969 and taught there for 40 years. She did teach one semester at Stone Memorial High School to help get the business program started. She plans on retiring this year after the first semester.

She has taught speedwriting and keyboarding at Roane State. She has taught 20 different classes at CCHS during her 40 years. Most of them were business classes such as keyboarding, vocational office education, data processing and business machines. She is married to Jimmy McDonald and enjoys the piano and singing.

Linda B. Milam retired from CCHS last year after teaching 41 years in the business department. She taught business English, business math, clerical office practice, introduction to business and typewriting (later called keyboarding). She began teaching on a manual typewriter, then an electric typewriter and finally a computer. She is married to Jim Milam, also a retired teacher. She says that she enjoyed her years of teaching and feels "fortunate to have taught many of our county and school leaders." She hasn't given up teaching completely thought. She still teaches a children's Sunday school class at Calvary Church in Big Lick.

Wilma Raper graduated from CCHS when it was still the "Red Devils." She got her degree in business education from Tennessee Tech. She taught one year at Bakers Crossroads Elementary in 1965. The next year, she transferred to CCHS where she taught until February of 2006. She taught typing (later called keyboarding), shorthand accounting, economics, personal finance and business math. She says she enjoyed her free time at CCHS and saw many changes in education during her time there. She is married to Boyd Raper and has two daughters, Beth and Leann. She also has two granddaughters that attend North Cumberland, Kaylee and Paige.