UGA graduate student Terri Parker likes to tell people she met her husband, Lamar, in prison.

Parker’s giggle swells into a full-bellied laugh before she adds merrily, “We both worked there. Got you, didn’t I?”

She worked from 2011-2013 at Lee Arrendale State Prison, a women’s prison near Gainesville, Ga. in the hospital’s radiology department. The Parkers, who married in 2012, were introduced thanks to a mutual connection. “His (Lamar’s) niece also worked with me in the prison.”

The prison experience was important for more reasons than finding a life partner. She explains how prison revealed how different her background was, having lived a life surrounded by family who nurtured her ambitions.

This was not the experience for the prisoners she encountered at Arrendale. Meeting and getting to know the inmates had an unexpected outcome: a deepened sense of compassion.

Parker calls this instruction “life lessons.”

“Working in the prison brought a new perspective to life for me. Every morning I would check in and hear those prison bars clang shut behind me. I was dependent on someone else to allow me entrance and exit.”

As time unfolded at Arrendale, Parker slowly came to understand what the prison experience meant. A primary lesson, she says, was self and other acceptance.

“We’re all flawed,” Parker says. “I began to examine my own fears, wounds, hurts, and even my dreams. Knowing I could leave every day to go outside in the world and experience the many things I have caused me to begin to appreciate the little things. I learned to be content in the silence.”

Some of the lessons were more dramatic. The women’s prison, located in Habersham County, GA., houses death row prisoners awaiting execution. She came to know one in particular who was later executed.

Parker graduated from Gwinnett Technical College, and became “the first total virtual student for Armstrong Atlantic State University,” she says.

Parker chose to enter UGA to earn a Master’s in Education, encouraged by her family, and specializing in Learning, Leadership, and Organization Development.

She especially enjoys telling how she and her daughter, Eryn, are both UGA students. Eryn, a UGA undergraduate, asked her mother a direct question:

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we were here together?”

Parker flashed immediately to a popular comedy, Life of the Party, based upon that same premise.

She had to ask herself, “would I want to be in school with my daughter?”

“You’ve seen that movie that recently came out, three years ago, where Melissa McCarthy goes back to school with her daughter? My friends sent me a message with a clip from that, saying, ‘Oh yes, I could totally see you doing that.’”

Her laughter, once begun, isn’t contained easily.

Parker’s humor is equal to her drive, which is saying something. For a serious, competitive student, Parker isn’t much for convention. She is invested, and uses phrases like, “I’m in it to win it!”

She is also engaged with her community. Advocacy is a big aspect of her identity. Parker is not only involved in organizations relative to the farm she and her husband own, but also volunteers with the Piedmont Rape Crisis Center Board in Jefferson where she lives.

There, she and her husband co-own and operate a farm and small cattle operation. Their daughter is also involved. Parker holds certifications in Master Cattleman and Master of Beef Advocacy. She is president-elect of the Cattlewoman’s Association for the State of Georgia, and will assume office in April of 2021.

“We spend our (wedding) anniversary at the Cattleman’s Convention,” she adds without a giggle.

Parker came from “a long line of women who…” and then she pauses and goes silent for a long moment before completing the thought.

Then she breaks the silence. “I don’t want to make it sound like I’m the promised child. But I am,” Parker says, before throwing her head back and laughing wholeheartedly. She explains that she is part of a succession of women who were strong, determined, and independent. And yes, she sometimes felt she was different.

In her youth, Parker says she struggled with her individuality.

Parker and her daughter, Eryn, are both UGA students. This 2015 photo was taken with Terri, left, and Lamar, far right, when Eryn won top honors for showmanship. “She is holding the coveted belt buckle,” says her proud mother. “The next year she won Grand Supreme showman, which is the highest ranking to win out of all the showmanship classes.” Competitors are judged on their ability to show their livestock entry to the best advantage. Photos Courtesy of Terri Parker.

Her paternal grandfather, a barber who was both observant and interested, was very close to her. He assured his granddaughter from early childhood that she could reach any goal. The younger Parker was listening.

Her grandfather was largely self-taught, though never formally educated, but when Parker studied to become an X-ray technologist, her grandfather shared what he knew from his own work and training, helping her master and understand basic anatomy.

“He would talk about the bones of the head and face.”

Not only did he offer her insights into anatomy, he discussed genetics in relatable ways. “He would talk, for example, about raising chickens.” By using talking points and examples drawn from life on the farm and experiences as a barber, her grandfather de-mystified science.

Having young and engaged grandparents and very young parents lent Parker an entirely different perspective.

“My dad was child number six or seven, one of the youngest. He was the favored child…extremely intelligent. He had a scholarship to Georgia Tech.”

Her parents were teens when they married, explains Parker. “My mom was 14 and my dad was 18 when I was born. My joke is always, ‘I raised them the best I could.’”

When her father graduated from high school in 1971, Parker was born. Another child followed. Her father, young and progressive in his ideas, taught his daughter “about everything in a man’s world.”

Parker participated in sports at a young age, explaining, “because there were very few girls.”

Her mother also taught Parker about resilience and strength.

“My mom wasn’t one who took her rightful place,” Parker chortles. “She took what she wanted!”

Her parents remained residents of Jefferson, GA., where Parker eventually attended the same high school as her parents. She mentions never having anonymity—and comparisons to her parents were inevitable.

“Everything was a life lesson,” she says.

In her teens, Parker enjoyed art, drawing and sketching. She leveraged her art abilities, she jokingly explains.

“I didn’t have to type,” says Parker, who parlayed art skills into creative bulletin boards, which she used to barter. “The typing teacher typed for me until I was forced to learn in college.” At that time, Parker dreamed of becoming a medical illustrator.

Today, her mother is only in her early 60s. Her grandmother—only in her 30s when Parker was born—is now 80 years old. Both women still play key roles in her life.

Parker says, “I call my grandmother in Jasper every single day.”
A sense of connection extends beyond family. She even remains in touch with teachers from middle school days. Parker recently reconnected with a childhood music teacher.

She discovered the music teacher still keeps a painting she made for her after these many years. At this, Parker smiles and her pale eyes fill.

Parker strives to be self-sufficient, and fiercely her own person. Then there is her trademark humor.

A colleague once told her, if there’s a famous character she’s most like, it is Tyler Perry’s fictional character Medea.

Parker howls at the comparison and now her eyes fill again—with tears of laughter. She may have earned the comparison given her fierce sense of self and by being a crack shot—another thing her elders taught her.

Emerging Leaders in Fellowship

“Starting Graduate School, I have met some amazing people. Everywhere I turn,” says Parker. Leadership always fascinated her, even when a young girl. It became a slowly crystalized focus of her work and studies as she matured.

She applied to the Emerging Leaders program in 2019, which is sponsored by the UGA Graduate School.

Emerging Leaders is an invitational leadership program that occurs in the fall. Parker was chosen as one of 16 students recommended by their lead professors.

While Parker wanted to attend Emerging Leaders, she privately worried about being an adult student, or being the only adult student, who might attend. “It was out of my comfort zone.”

As it happens, she wasn’t.

Years earlier, while a high school student, Parker was invited to attend a training experience representing Gwinnett County. It was the teenager’s first time being away from home, and staying overnight.

“I got to relive that at Emerging Leaders,” she says. “But reliving that Rock Eagle experience with maturity. I’m close to 50. I’m not a kid.”

The 2019 EL program was held in Dillard, Ga. during the fall break and is immersive. “Going to this Emerging Leaders program, it reminded me of that.”

Once a shy and quiet teen, the mature Parker was lively and expressive.

She shared that it was like reliving the early experience with maturity. “It doesn’t matter if I fit in, or am different.”

On the last day of EL, she thanked the group for having the experience with a difference lens.

The lens was maturity.

The timing was excellent, she says, even on a practical level. Until last Christmas, she was living with her family in an RV while they were completing a new house on their farm.

“I was excited to take a warm shower,” she jokes, as she reviews what the intensive EL weekend was like and the more cerebral ways she benefitted.

“I’ve always had a passion for education and leadership. We have lots of leaders in the world who assume leadership—but aren’t leaders. I want to learn from those who are stellar leaders. How can I become a better leader?”

This philosophy has been whetted and honed by the family and teachers, the many people in Parker’s extended circle. “I am very blessed; there were so many people strategically placed in my path. By birth and by choice.”

Parker feels gratitude. “I came from a long line of men and women who pushed me to do more, be more. The thing that has been with me all my life is…an uncle or aunt would challenge me to do better if I earned a B in class.” They were serving as life coaches before such a term was even used.

In a recent class with her professor, Laura Bierma, there was discussion “of coaching and why it matters.”

Life is a game, Parker learned. Winners were shown praise and accolades.

Parker adds, “We equate ability and skill with leadership; it is not the same. (I believe) leadership is born and taught; a combination. Much is from a general knowing,” she says.

Service has become an expression of how Parker is repaying opportunities.

“In 1987, I joined Kiwanis/Key Club, a high school club, in Suwanee, Ga. It’s a service club. And you serve the children. Jefferson just started a Kiwanis club. I always wanted to go back to that.”

For the plucky adult Parker, one who loves multiple roles, there are realistic challenges being a cattle woman, farmer, parent, and adult graduate student simultaneously. For example, sometimes calves are born in the middle of a wintry night. On one such night, they delivered the calf by the light of a truck—she pulls up the image on her phone.

When stresses come, there are many ways she blows off steam. One is on two wheels.

“I could ride a motorcycle before I could walk,” she says. “I had a little battery-operated three-wheeler motorcycle that I could crawl up on and drive. By age 13, I was riding my dad’s Suzuki 1300 like a dirt bike.”

Once again, her father supported his daughter’s interest, coaching her to overcome any inhibition.

“You know how you have Bike Week? My dad hosted Bike Night.” She graduated from the three-wheeler to a Harley.

But the strong-willed, good-humored adult student, the one who wants to be taken seriously, isn’t shy about wanting to maintain her femininity too.

There is the problem of helmet hair, known to anyone who has ever donned a helmet.

“I keep a blow drier and hair products in my Harley saddlebag,” she quips. Then, Parker unlooses her great laugh.

And she is a woman who cares about equal opportunities for all.

When she has a morning coffee, Parker sometimes watches innocent sitcoms from the 70s. Here again, there are life lessons to be gleaned.

“It’s neat to watch the progression of a TV show,” she says. “You’re watching the genres of our society, of how we’ve changed.” An episode of “My Three Sons” concerned one of the sons, Chip, as a newlywed.

Parker says she was busily preparing for her day “when Chip turned to his wife, and said, ‘You made a vow to serve and obey.’”

Parker froze.

Watching that TV segment, she flashed to her daughter, who is highly competitive. Her mother and grandmother. She thought of her father. Her grandfather. All of whom had taught her to live a “no limits” life.

She would live her life in service to the people and interests that spoke to her, but she would not obey.

Then, Parker pivoted from the TV, adjusted her jaw, and headed into the morning. She had plenty to do.