Barbara Adcock (center) painted a mural at Peck Elementary School with portraits of (from left) third-grader Xanthia Gray, and fifth-graders Valery Martinez, Taylor Williams, Carlos Ramirez, Magguette Seye and Jordan Ly.
PHOTO BY NELSON KEPLEY, GREENSBORO NEWS & RECORD
By Jeri Rowe
5/16/2012, Greensboro News & Record
GREENSBORO — It’s beautiful, Peck Elementary’s new mural.
It’s at least 12 feet high, a dozen steps across and features all kinds of things that Peck kids recognize — a cardinal, an arrowhead, a pagoda, an African savanna, the Statue of Liberty and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Peck kids recognize the 59 portraits, too. They’re classmates painted in a frame and run across the mural like notes on a music staff.
Fifth-grader Magguette Seye jokes that her cheeks are too puffy. Fourth-grader Carlos Ramirez jokes that fifth-grader Valery Martinez looks so high school with her smart-girl glasses.
And fifth-grader Taylor Williams just laughs. Her mom does, too. Her daughter’s hairstyle is so retro.
“It’s my Afro,’’ says Taylor, 10. “She told me that all I needed to do was put some hoop earrings on me, and that (portrait) could be from the ’80s.’’ The mural makes Taylor and her classmates happy. “I was so proud to see our school as a melting pot,’’ says fifth-grader Jordan Ly, whose family comes from South Vietnam. “We’re more than one kind of person. We’re unique. And for me, it’s not, ‘Look at that Asian boy.’ I feel like I am somebody. I can do something.’’
Peck kids. That’s what Principal Francine Mallory calls her students. She’s been there 11 years, and she’s seen firsthand the faces of our tough economy. They are her families, her kids.
Peck kids.
At Peck, nearly every student receives a free or reduced lunch. That’s 96 percent in a 393-student school built 78 years ago to serve one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.
Today, Glenwood is a working-class mix of families who’ve come from almost every country on the globe. They’ve lived in Glenwood for generations or they’ve been there for just a few years.
Peck is their home. And now, they have a mural.
A few weeks back, generations of Glenwood families came to see the mural unveiled. When they saw it, more than a few gasped.
“I can’t believe you did this for nothing,’’ people told the mural’s painter.
“It’s not always about the dollar,’’ she responded.
That’s Barbara Ann Adcock, 50, a mother of two, a flooring specialist at Home Depot, Class of ’80 from Southeast Guilford High. She did the mural because her friend, Georgina Sanchez, Peck’s ESL interpreter, asked. But she also did it for her own teachers. They helped her escape.
Back then, her mom called her Squeaky. She grew up on her paternal grandparents’ farm in Climax. She came from a family of five, lived in a house with no plumbing, milked a cow before daybreak and endured an alcoholic father. Meanwhile, a handful of classmates taunted her. “You’re poor!’’ “You smell!’’ “Go back home!’’ Sometimes, she’d shout back. But sometimes, she’d cry. One time, at Southeast Guilford Middle, Assistant Principal Cox found her in the hall. She doesn’t remember his first name. But she remembers what he said. “You have no reason to be ashamed,’’ he told her that day. “Hold your head up, look them in the eye and say, ‘You need to be careful. You’re showing your immaturity.’’’ She did, and it helped. At Southeast Guilford High, Ms. Chenaweth and Gina Hill helped, too. Ms. Chenaweth taught her to love Shakespeare, and Gina Hill taught her to love art.
This spring, while working on her mural, she thought of those teachers. And as she worked, kids came by. One was Carlos.
At first, he didn’t look at her. He simply looked at the floor. Adcock lifted his chin.
“Sweetheart, don’t look at the floor,’’ she told him. “Look me in the eyes.’’
He did. A few weeks later, he brought by his artwork. By the last day, she dropped by Peck with a gift for him: art paper and paints and markers.
In Carlos, she saw Squeaky. And like Mr. Cox, she knew what to do.
At the unveiling, Carlos stood beside Adcock, and when he saw the mural, he didn’t gasp like others around him. He hugged her, and in a voice barely above a whisper, he said, “Thank you.’’
“You’re welcome,’’ she responded.
Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com