Harold Lockwood
It took a personal health crisis to convince Harold Lockwood he should go back to school.
Harold was married and raising three children in western New York in 1986 when he ruptured three disks in his back while working for the town highway department. The doctor told Harold he'd never be able to do manual labor again. The injury was a blow to his income, because he'd been earning a steady wage and was looking forward to a secure retirement. But with physical labor no longer an option, Harold had some decisions to make.
Collecting disability checks for the rest of his life wasn't an option - they weren't enough to pay the mortgage and put food on the table. Public assistance wouldn't do, either. Harold had always provided for his family one way or another, and he wasn't about to let an injury stop him.
"If I have a responsibility, I want to take care of it myself," he says.
Eventually it became clear that Harold's next job would require him to read and write. So the Belmont, N.Y., resident finally listened to what his daughter Lisa had been trying to tell him - he should go back to school and earn a GED. At the age of 46, Harold swallowed his pride and walked into the office of Literacy Volunteers of Allegany County to ask for help.
"I decided to get more education," he recalls.
Harold was assigned a tutor for one-on-one sessions, and the pair went right to work on raising his reading skills. Their first year was a bit rocky, but since then Harold's progress has been steady.
One day, after Harold had been a student for some time, he sat in on a tutor training session. He wasn't there to learn how to become a tutor; he just wanted to get some questions answered for fellow students. Yet, at the end of the 18-hour training, he was handed a certificate that proclaimed him qualified to teach. That encouraged him so much that he went on to become a trainer of tutors. A natural leader, Harold started putting his new training to work tutoring others and soon found himself president of the board of directors for Literacy Volunteers of Allegany County, Inc.
Harold's eyes light up as he recalls helping his fellow students. "It just makes me feel so good when I can help someone get through something I've gone through," he says.
Thanks to his new GED, Harold continues to progress. At the local level, he has been invited by United Way of Allegany County to help formulate a strategy to assist the young and old in Allegany County. He has traveled to the state capital and Washington, D.C., to lobby lawmakers on adult education issues. He has also been elected to the Student Advisory Council for ProLiteracy America, the nation's largest adult literacy organization.
"It really feels good to be able to pull information together, see that it's passed along, and help not just one student, but maybe thousands," Harold says.
Strong language skills are also helping him earn money. He owns his own business plowing snow in the winter, cutting grass in the summer, and selling synthetic lubricants year round. Thanks to his GED, Harold is able to handle his own correspondence and bookkeeping.
Today, at age 62, Harold isn't finished learning. He dreams of earning a bachelor's degree. "I don't know that I'd be able to use it," he chuckles, "but it would be nice to say that I have it!"
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