"I thank God for people like that"

However, she does remember receiving the $1,000 Joseph P. Atkins and William L. Husk Minority Teacher Scholarship, which she used primarily to purchase books for her classes.

"I thank God for people like that," she says, referring to the two men who established the scholarship fund. "It was wonderful at the time it came because I was really at a loss for money."

Husk, professor emeritus in the School of Education, and the late Atkins, a former assistant superintendent of the Jefferson County Public Schools, devoted much of their careers to recruiting minorities into the teaching profession. In 1985, they developed the Minority Teacher Recruitment Project, a collaborative program between U of L and the school district. In 1994, they established the privately funded scholarship to support minority teacher education students.

"If you don't have minority teachers," Husk explains, "you don't have anywhere to get minority counselors or administrators or superintendents."

For Shelby, getting her teacher certification meant quitting her full time job and becoming completely dependent on scholarships. Her experience working with youths at the Portland Boys and Girls Club gave her the idea that she would find more rewards in teaching than in her job of writing and editing letters to mortgagers.

"I haven't regretted it," Shelby says of her decision to pursue teaching. "Maybe somewhere along the line I'll make a difference in a child's life or a parent's or both."