Pictured (l to r) are Peggy Melton (Literacy Director). Kay Phelps nd Lianzi Seabolt.

BY Walker Thompson
June 6, 2006

Tonight we want to recognize a very special tutor student team. They started to work together in early 2000 and they continue together today, but it is not the length of time they have been together but what they have accomplished in that time.

The team is Kay Phelps and Lianzi Seabolt. Kay went through the new tutor training program in the fall of 1999. Lianzi came into our program as an ESL student in early 2000.

Most of you tutors remember how you were a little apprehensive after finishing the training and before starting with you first student. Well I would like you to put yourself in Kay's shoes for a moment. Lianzi had come to this country from China. She spoke very little or maybe no English.

I am not sure what Lois Martin, our Director at the time, promised Kay, but Kay accepted the challenge of working with Lianzi even though she understood no Chinese. The two of them hit it off right away and in no time found away to communicate. I am sure there were many difficult tutoring sessions but they were never discouraged.

Lianzi not only learned English, but also learned it very well. A couple of year ago Lianzi was hire as a hair stylist at Ladies & Gents Hair Salon in St Albans. I have been to a similar place with Gail on occasion and they are just like a barbershop, they are talking all the time, and I am sure they are not talking Chinese.

In order to be successful in that business you have to be a good conversationalist as well as know how to fix hair. Lianzi is doing well.

Lianzi ran her own shop in China and I expect someday she will have one here. Last year Lianzi was selected by Literacy West Virginia and the Bolt organization to be a member of the statewide student speaker's bureau and in September she and her husband Michael attended the conference and workshops at Snowshoe

In October Lianzi spoke to our ESL tutor training workshop. So tonight we want to recognize Kay and Lianzi as tutor and student of the year.