A Life Well Lived

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Posted on December 1, 2020

Lance Crawford

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University of South Alabama Writer in Residence Frye Gaillard’s new memoir “Live As If… A Teacher’s Love Story” has been published. This work is deeply personal to Gaillard as he reflects on the life and work of his wife Nancy, who died of leukemia in 2018.

“Live As If” tells the story of Nancy’s work as a public school teacher, principal and professor.

“It’s a story of what can go right,” Gaillard says.

The award-winning author of more than 30 books also recounts Nancy’s extraordinary life, revealing her heroism as a teacher, chronicling her resilience, and portraying the courage of her everyday choices and actions.  

Nancy spent 30 years in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system in North Carolina. She began her career as a teacher during the school busing crisis of the 1970s and later became principal of a public Montessori school in that city. In 2004, she joined the faculty of the College of Education at the University of South Alabama and retired as an assistant professor in 2018, two years after earning her doctorate at the age of 67. She died later that year. 

“Nancy Gaillard was an educator extraordinaire,” said Dr. Andrea Moore Kent, USA’s interim provost and senior vice president of academic affairs. “Nancy’s commitment to her profession was evident throughout her career — as a teacher, inspiring young children; as an administrator, mentoring colleagues; and as an instructor, teaching future teachers. She left a treasured legacy that will continue to impact countless lives.”

A native of Mobile, Frye Gaillard is the author of such critically praised titles as “A Hard Rain: America in the 1960s,” named by NPR as one of the best books of 2018; and “Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement That Changed America,” winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award. Negative Capability Press is an award-winning independent publisher, founded by former Alabama Poet Laureate Sue Walker.

A minimum gift of $50 made towards the “Nancy Gaillard Love of Teaching Scholarship” or the “Angelia and Steven Stokes Endowed Scholarship in Creative Writing” will receive a signed hard copy of “Live As If....A Teacher's Love Story” by Frye Gaillard. To make an online gift to the “Nancy Gaillard Love of Teaching Scholarship,” please click here. To make an online gift to the “Angelia and Steven Stokes Endowed Scholarship in Creative Writing,” click here.

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