Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 7 March 1996 — Page 5

The Muncie Times, March 7,1996, Page 5

Cobbs continued from page 1 Educational Workshop for Math and Science Teachers.) About a year ago, his wife, Carole, decided to accompany him on a parttime basis, making presentations that emphasize diversity, culture and creative imagination as they relate to flight and other abstract sciences. A fun-loving, yet no-nonsense couple, the Cobbs are part of a major pioneering effort that promotes scholastic achievement and academic excellence in career often considered as non-traditional for African American students. Both were bom into families that valued education. College attendance was expected. Cobbs knew where he was going to go when he was 15. Between them, the Cobbs have raised four adult children, DeLarion, Leonard, Hillary and Patricia, with the same belief system about education. During the week of Feb. 13, the Cobbs visited 12 elementary, two middle, and two high schools in our area. However, Muncie was not the first stop for the Cobbs in Indiana. Before that, they spent nearly a week last October at the Bunker Hill School Corp. in the Greenwood area with elementary teachers. They were also in Fort Wayne. “Muncie came in with the biggest request,” said Cobbs. “We could not work this in, in conjunctior with anything else. We had to do this separately. Altogether, we’ve been in Indiana for 3 weeks.” The NASA Educational Programs Office deals specifically with educators, using field experts to fulfill their educational mission. Every year - with assistance from the Nationa Science Teachers Association - each of N ASA’s 11 field centers takes in 23 to 25 educators from the 250 selected. Mrs, Cobbs may appear to be a quiet individual with big-city roots form the Cleveland vicmity. jusi because she assists her husband doesn’t mean you can second-guess her ideas. She is a strong, confident woman who doesn’t mince words with anyone, especially her husband of 8 years. In fact, ner husband describes her as a “straight-shooter.” The two really love working together. “Leonard is the humorous one,” said Carole. Her husband describes her as “strong, creative and unique.” Because of their respect for one another’s viewpoints, and the collaborative efforts they use to present their message, they bring out the best in each other. “I admire and appreciate Leonard because he listens to me, doesn’t attempt to tell me what to think and lets me be myself. When I have something to say, I’m going to say it. He’s a good listener, and I enjoy working with him,” she

said.

Mrs. Cobbs has a background in library science and speech communication. She has worked with everyone, from pre-school to college-aged students, in the United States and abroad. “I was always a reader. That’s one of the things I try to impart to the children when we do story hours...,” she said. The two visited so many schools while in Muncie that it was difficult for them to tell where they had been on which day. But they agreed that Muncie Community Schools was one of the best school systems they had encountered, because everywhere the students were curious and receptive. “Each school emphasized different things . . . some encouraged music, others relationships and citizenship. Many promoted reading by the types of posters that hung in their hallways,” Cobbs said. “The most common thing that we noticed in all of them were DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education) posters.” Using humor, inquisitiveness and imagination, the Cobbs’ conjointly coalesce a respect and appreciation for learning, while priming young minds. “We’re trying to incorporate the total child concept,” they said. Mrs. Cobbs said that their theme is aeronautics. “My stories have to do with flight patterns of birds, flight history, aeronautics, meteorology, and areas. Culturally, everybody has some kind of see COBBS on page 11

Quarles continued from page 4

a program that deserves the support disabilities to live in surroundings of everybody, especially African where they would be independent and American parents.” will be able to take care of Her biggest project at the moment, themselves, while living in a though, is trying to get funding for community where people without Muncie’s first integrated housing disabilities can also stay. This would project. Quarles said she is seeking be the first building of its kind in

$2 million from public and private sectors to establish the integrated apartment complex in the 1300 and 1400 blocks of Bunch Avenue. If all goes well, the project would get

underway in June.

Indiana,” she said.

In addition to all this, Quarles stays busy by being a member of the Indiana Civil Rights Commission, a board member of the County Community Partnership on Disability,

With March being National the Open Door Community Services, Disability Month, we want to move United Way, and the Muncie Public ahead with starting the program and Library. She is also a member of many completing it by the end of 1997. We groups, including the NAACP, want to construct 18 tc 24 units that National Association of the Deaf, will be so attractive, affordable and Jaycees, Business Women of accessible for the low- to moderate- America, YMCA, the Rotary Club, income communities to move in. This Muncie Chamber of Commerce, model would be a replica of the National Interpreter of the Deaf and Atlantis Community in Denver, Outreach Services for the Hearing

Colo., which has received national recognition. The Muncie program would be she 13th in the nation. “It seeks to get people with

Impaired.

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