Volunteer of the Month
Volunteer of the Month
December 2000
Jane Montgomery
by Ralph Cherry

Alamo PC Organization: HOME > About Us > Awards > Volunteers Of The Month
 
 
I have the formidable task this month of trying to summarize the life of Jane Montgomery, an enthusiastic and outgoing person with so many facets it is hard to discern them all, much less try to capture them in words.  But I will try.

Jane is an enthusiastic supporter for the SeniorComp classes for Senior citizens, and with good reason: she took the classes herself less than two years ago as her main introduction to computers. She has now moved from beyond the basics on into major graphics programs.  She now uses Print Shop and Corel Print House 4 with facility, and is studying the more advanced graphic programs – CorelDraw9 and PhotoPaint9.

There are many other facets to the life of this lady.  Let's talk about fighter pilots, colleges, sailboats, herbs, and “the Streaker”.  The first three of those topics relate to Douglas, her husband of 55 years.  After he left the military, he went back to school for a Ph.D. in College Administration.  He was then called upon to be the President of 3 different community colleges, one after the other.   Jane was his helpmate during those assignments.

Then there's the story about the 42 foot sailing ketch the Blue Eagle.  After the college years, these two lucky people retired and lived for 15 years (!) on a sailboat in the Caribbean – moving when they wanted to, staying when they wanted to, and living the life many of us have only dreamed about.  They visited all the islands from the top of the Bahamas to the coast of Venezuela, only occasionally staying on land or flying back to the US.  What a life!

They have since retired on land and have slowed down a bit – except for computers.  Jane got her first computer for Christmas in 1998.  She started a SeniorComp class a month later, soon became a class assistant, and soon got involved in graphics on the computer.  She now has two challenging projects to put together:

  1. A PowerPoint presentation on herbs (she is a certified Master Gardener)

    2. with details on when and how to plant them, their characteristics, and illustrative  photos,  and
  2. Some photos and a history of their family, put into an album format.

    3. The purpose is not genealogy, but rather a record, so that future generations will know their roots.
Now what kind of machine does she do all this on?  Well, I helped her some in putting together the Dream Machine she recently bought, nicknamed the Streaker.  It has a 1000 Megahertz CPU, 512 Mb of Ram, a 40 Gigabyte Hard Drive, a CD-RW drive and a DVD drive.  This is one streaking, smoking, screaming machine!  An incredible machine!

Jane appreciates Alamo PC because of the things she has learned and the help received from its members.  She is very enthusiastic about SeniorComp, and she expects it to become even bigger and better.

These few words don't begin to capture the full essence of this enthusiastic lady – you will just have to meet her to fully appreciate her!