Community Builders: Pauline Miller

The work of many women who help to build our community often go unnoticed. I will be doing a series of blogs to recognize the work of some exceptional women in my community and their impact on my life.

Many girls go through adolescence without suitable role models. As a result some end up pregnant, drop out of school, turn to drugs, alcohol and other negative ways to cope with the changes they are experiencing. Others go through their daily lives struggling to understand the world, confused about the changes in their bodies and the expectations of society on how a “normal” teenage girl should act. I was fortunate to meet Mrs Miller just as I started adolescence and needed a role model and mentor to help guide me through this significant phase of my life. Growing up without my mother who passed away when I was 5 years old, at times I felt alone and I felt like I had no one to talk to and that no one quite understood what I was experiencing. Mrs Miller opened up her home to me, treated me like her own daughter and helped me navigate the roller coaster known as adolescence.

 Mrs Miller worked as an executive secretary at Herbert Morrison Technical High school, under the leadership of principal Lloyd Whinstanley. Mrs Miller was one of the staff members who worked at HMTHS since it started in 1975 and saw the school go through many changes and overcome many obstacles to become the institution it is today.

To help you understand her personality, she can be compared to Michele Obama. She was intelligent, strong, tall, elegant, very straightforward, looked you straight in the eye, commanded your respect and reciprocated that respect. She can be described as the person who works behind the scenes to help the school achieve it’s goals. She is very focused and work oriented. She may be described as quiet by many and a lot of students who may not have interacted with her.  I am very fortunate to have had her as a positive role model in my life. As a young confused, 11 year old, the first thing she taught me was that I should learn to love myself and I should learn to love the color of my skin. She also encouraged me to be confident, to speak up and to always look people in the eye.

Many students may not realize the huge significance of her administrative duties and how her daily work activities had a huge impact on their lives. To put her job function in other words, every major decision that affected HMTHS, every major document that was signed by Mr Whinstanley was either prepared by her or required her signature, her approval on it’s way to or from Mr Whinstanley’s office. She was present at every staff meeting where decisions were made to affect the lives of the students that attended HMTHS. She did all this work quietly behind the scenes. Most students only interacted with her while she was busy at work and so they may only see her as a  serious, hardworking , strict administrator. However for those students who could  catch her on her break, she would greet them with the biggest smile and share encouraging, positive words.

Herbert Morrison has named one of the competitive inter-school sports house “Miller” in her honor. I am very blessed and fortunate to have had Mrs Miller as a role model and I can attribute many positive habits that I now have because she took the time to teach me. She is now retired from HMTHS, but her influence on the lives of students who attended HMTHS while she was there is very evident in their daily lives.