Making the Grade:: From Academic Recovery to Summa Cum Laude - Tapa blanda

Making the Grade provides life lessons for serious students that want to graduate with honors. It’s a good feeling to be distinguished with cords, stoles and lapel pins. There is an overwhelming feeling of pride that hits you just before you reach the stage. And once you hit that stage, and the announcer calls your name, you hear the roar of the crowd and the screams of your family and friends, and it simply feels GREAT! You start to think about all the long days and late nights, all the television shows and telephone calls you had to miss to stay focused, all the sacrifices you had to make in order to forge ahead, and then your smile begins to grow wider and wider without effort. Your step gets more pep and your stature grows taller. So take some time to journey with me through my life as a student, from childhood to adulthood. I pray that my experiences will provide you with insight, laughter, effective methods for success and alternatives to my mistakes.

Tara is a native of Savannah, Georgia. She is the only child of Elaine Boyington and the late Charlie Smith, Jr. and the proud parent of two sons, Malik and Malachi Davis. Tara received her early education in the Savannah-Chatham County public school system and she is a 1989 graduate of Sophronia M. Tompkins High School. She is a 2012 Summa Cum Laude honor graduate of Columbia College where she received her Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration in July 2012. In May 2011, she was inducted into the Sigma Beta Delta honor society for Business majors. She puts her Business degree to good use as the Entrepreneur of Peaks n Valleys Gift Gallery & Desktop Print Shop. She was featured on the Michael Baisden show in November 2009 for her natural product line and she was featured on the cover of Business in Savannah because of her support to orphanages in Africa. Tara has been employed with the Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education for thirteen years, with the majority of her tenure in the School Nutrition Program.