\nPMSS Student 1933-1937
\n<\/strong>Community Worker 1937-1938
\nHousemother, Big Log<\/a> Sept 1938-1940: West Wind<\/a> 1942-1944
\n<\/strong>Dietitian 1950-1951<\/strong><\/p>\n
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Tags:<\/strong> Georgia Ayers Dodd ; Pine Mountain Settlement School students ; PMSS Octet ; community workers ; Arthur W. Dodd ; housemothers ; Hot Lunch Program ; Ganado (Arizona) Mission ; dietitians ;<\/p>\n As a student at the Pine Mountain Settlement School (PMSS) in the 1930s, Georgia Ayers (Dodd) was already well-known as one of three sisters who were members of the PMSS Girls’ Octet<\/a>,\u00a0Joanna<\/a>, Ruby and Georgia and the rest of the group often toured the country for the School on promotional trips in 1936 and 1937. A 1937 Octet program for a White House performance listed her solo singing of “I Wonder As I Wander.” She finished PMSS high school in 1937, the second of her six sisters who graduated from the School.<\/p>\n Georgia Ayers (Dodd). [mexico_02.jpg]<\/p><\/div>Georgia was a talented and precocious student and attracted the attention of the administration who often looked for students to promote. Georgia was one of those. \u00a0At the end of the school year in June of 1936, she was invited to travel to Mexico with the Director, Glyn Morris<\/a>, his wife Gladys, PMSS Principal Arthur Dodd<\/a>, Fern Hall<\/a>, Secretary to Morris, and Grazia Combs, a school administrator from Perry County, Ky. The group drove to New Orleans and then on to Mexico city and the craft city of Taxco, A record of that journey is recorded in DANCING IN THE CABBAGE PATCH: 1936 PMSS & MEXICO<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Her post-graduate year, 1937-1938, was spent as a member of the first “Community Group.” Consisting of five young women, all Pine Mountain students, this community visiting project was featured in The Emerging High School Curriculum<\/em> and Its Direction\u00a0<\/i>by Dr. Harold Spears (1948).<\/p>\n Arthur Dodd and Georgia Ayers Dodd with daughter Elizabeth, c. 1943. {pmss_photo_MOD_dodd_family_enlarged-2.jpg]<\/p><\/div>\n At the end of Georgia’s participation in this project, she married Arthur W. Dodd, Jr., a Berea College graduate. He had come to the School in 1932 as a music, science and history teacher and later served as business manager, acting director, and school principal. Georgia worked on the Pine Mountain staff as houseparent for junior-senior girls from 1939-1949. In 1950-1951, she was director of the Hot Lunch Program for the Harlan County Community School then held on the Pine Mountain campus.\u00a0Georgia stayed on at the School for another 14 years, strengthening the School’s programs with her skills and dedication and, at the same time, caring for her growing family. During this time, the Dodds had two daughters,\u00a0Elizabeth Oaks Dodd and Margaret Cresswell Dodd, born in 1943 and 1945 respectively, at the School. Both daughters later chose careers in teaching.<\/p>\n June 1951 marked the end of the Dodd family’s stay at Pine Mountain when they relocated to\u00a0Ganado Mission, located on the Navajo Indian Reservation in northern Arizona. There Georgia served the Ganado Public School System as Director of the Food Service Program for the elementary, middle school and high school for the next 21 years, employing and supervising a staff of 18 mostly Navajo Indians.<\/p>\n Ever developing her abilities, Georgia attended several schools throughout her working years: George Peabody Teachers’ College, Nashville, TN; Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff; University of Arizona, Tucson; and Arizona State University, Tempe.<\/p>\n Georgia Ayers’ parents were Henry Gilmore Ayers (1894-1959) and Ethel Elizabeth Oaks Ayers (1983-1979). Georgia was born September 13, 1918, in Ewing (Lee County), Virginia. When in the second grade she moved with her family to the coal-mining village of Twila, Kentucky, where she attended the local elementary school.<\/p>\n In later years, Georgia and Arthur Dodd settled in Johnson City, Tennessee.\u00a0Georgia was an active member of the First United Presbyterian Church\u00a0in nearby Elizabethton, TN, where her husband was the organist. She was also active at the local and county levels of the Extension Service of the University of Tennessee.<\/p>\n
\n![\"mexico_02\"](\"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/mexico_02-637x1024.jpg\")
![\"Arthur](\"http:\/\/staging.pinemountainsettlement.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/pmss_photo_MOD_dodd_family_enlarged-2-257x300.jpg\")
\nGALLERY: GEORGIA AYERS DODD<\/h3>\n\n\t\t