Page 76 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2023 - Online Magazine
P. 76
Exceptional
SENIORS
A Spudpicker in
RAIDERLAND
Alma Jane Wood
Her Life of Faith, Hope & Love
by Karen, John and Cecilia Wood
ormer Texas Tech Health under the noble direction of her February 27, 1960
Sciences Center employee; mother Veva (Miller) Moravek,
Fwife of beloved TTU history whose sacrificial love gave her
professor, whose legacy lives on in a model of joyfulness and a strong sweetheart, Chuck Wood. One
the Charles L. Wood Annual Lecture work ethic. As a young teen, Alma year ahead of her in school, Chuck
Series; and avid Ranger fan; Alma helped with the laundry her mother went to St. Benedict's College in
Wood has made Lubbock her home took in to make the rent and was Atchison, Kansas, in 1955, leaving
for more than four decades. In that never too proud to work at the local Alma to finish her senior year before
time, she has nurtured a family diner to keep up with her classmates embarking on her own college
of five children, and later twelve who could afford to pay. Simple journey at St. Mary's Junior College
grandchildren, now expanding to joys from a simpler time included in Omaha, Nebraska. A rural gal
three great- grandchildren. Having catching a show at the Bijou, where in homespun dresses and naïve
lost her husband in 1981, and two of twenty-five cents covered admission about the world, Alma aced all her
her children, Alma has experienced and a package of sunflower seeds to classes, nonetheless. She and Chuck
grief and loss, her share of ups and boot. passed their educational aspirations
downs, but remains forever an on to all five of their children.
optimist and a joyful example of the Alma’s Hemingford High School Additionally, Alma showed that
virtues of her generation. days, where she cheered for the you are never too old for college,
“Spudpickers,” included picture as she took continuing education
Born in Alliance, NE in 1937, Alma shows, gatherings at the Bobcat courses while raising children and
lovingly recounts her childhood Inn, and regular dances with her then returned to college in her 50s to
pursue a nursing degree
after a career at the TTU
Health Science Center.
Alma and Chuck’s love
story was a fairy tale in
some ways, marrying after
college and beginning a
journey that would yield
a family and plenty of
celebrations with friends
along the way. As a young
couple, they headed for
Hemingford sophomore Alma and friends decorat- Alma (center) with her three older Ft. Leonard Wood in
ing the HHS gym for the winter formal (c 1953) sisters and a young cousin Missouri, where Chuck
76 Lubbock Senior Link
