Remembering Sandra Deal, former first lady of Georgia

Former Georgia first girl Sandra Dunagan Deal has died at 80. 

She died Tuesday after a battle with most cancers.

Governor Brian Kemp introduced her demise from his Twitter account early Tuesday night.

Because the spouse of Georgia’s 82nd governor, Nathan Deal, Sandra Deal served as the primary girl of Georgia from 2011 to 2019.

She was an schooling advocate and former public faculty language arts trainer.

Rising up in North Georgia

Sandra Deal was born in Gainesville, Ga., in 1942.

Each her dad and mom have been educators.

She graduated from Georgia School & College in Milledgeville, receiving her bachelor’s diploma in elementary schooling in 1963 and her grasp’s diploma in elementary schooling in 1968.

Deal met her husband on a blind date once they have been faculty college students. The couple married in 1966 and have 4 kids and 6 grandchildren. 

She taught within the Corridor County College System for 15 years. 

Her impression as first girl

Throughout her tenure as first girl, Sandra Deal traveled the state as an educator, writer, historian, volunteer and “eternally learner.”

In 2015, she co-authored a ebook, Recollections of the Mansion, with two professors from Kennesaw State College, Dr. Catherine Lewis and Dr. Jennifer Dickey.

Deal additionally volunteered as a docent on the Governor’s Mansion, the place she shared her information of the mansion’s furnishings, paintings and structure.

She hoped to introduce extra Georgians to neighborhood service packages and volunteer alternatives by way of “With a Servant’s Coronary heart,” a statewide initiative.

However studying and literacy have been the true coronary heart of her public service.

She served as a co-chair of the Georgia Literacy Fee, which hosted a collection of symposiums to look at and enhance multigenerational low literacy charges.

She was concerned with “Learn Throughout Georgia Month” and partnered with the Get Georgia Studying Marketing campaign, an initiative to convey college students to grade-level studying standing by the top of the third grade.

Most notably, she made appearances at 800 faculties and pre-Okay packages, studying to college students in all of Georgia’s 159 counties and 181 faculty districts.

On Nov. 30, 2018, she accomplished her 1,000th faculty go to, sharing her ardour for books with children.

“I’ve immensely loved studying to college students on my visits, as educating kids to like studying offers them the arrogance to be taught on their very own far into the long run,” she wrote on her Fb web page.

Her civic life

Deal served as a chairwoman of the Georgia Youngsters’s Cupboard, which introduced collectively neighborhood leaders, philanthropists, educators, and enterprise stakeholders to enhance outcomes for youngsters and households, and the Georgia Older Adults Cupboard, which addressed coverage issues associated to getting old and introduced consciousness to the welfare of older Georgians. 

She additionally served on the board of trustees for Georgia School, her alma mater.