My Life After High School by Sally Garza

The day that we were supposed to graduate, my dad suffered a serious stroke. He was in the hospital in Raymondville while I was at the graduation.  My father kept having strokes and by late 1959, I knew I had to start working and earning a living in order to support my family.  I was the oldest.  I moved to Corpus Chrisi with an uncle and his wife.  In three days, I landed a job as a billing clerk.  That first job was the beginning of a career in Accounting, Finance, Investments, Real Estate and teaching Computer Literacy.  I have worked for almost 50 years doing what I love to do, working in these five fields that compliment each other.  I have worked for more than 80 attorneys (Kleberg, Redford, Dyer & Weil, had 52 attys), was a contractor for Education Service Center speaking to teachers and students about the future of computers. I have continously promoted computer literacy, (now among seniors).
The Corpus Christi Caller Times featured me on a Sunday article in the newspaper.  After, the article, people started calling me the computer lady.  The newspaper article took my business to another level, soon after that I became an entrepreneur.  I have owned seveal businesses,  became a consultant for "start up companies" and represented attorneys during IRS tax audits.  On one audit, the IRS ended up owing the attorney over $70,000 instead of the attorney owing the IRS.  The attorney's bookkeeper had entered dividend payments and loans as  "income" for a period of almost four years.  This happened during a period when I was doing conversions from manual accounting to automated accounting methods for professional offices.
In June 1966, I married Joaquin Garcia, a DOD programmer/systems analyst, we lived in Corpus Chrisi until he retired (33 yrs) from DOD and went to work for DPS, Criminology (10 yrs) in Austin.  We have two children, Melissa Manceaux, (Baylor MS) who has been HR director, for Barton Creek Resort for 14 years. Eric (UTSA BS) is our son, and  has been a Real Estate broker since 1994.  The joy of my life are Paul (12) and Myles (8), our two grandsons.
Typically, my day starts at 6: 00 every morning.  My day starts by either walking, jogging down the hill and doing Pilatis.  I tutor 5th grade math on MWF mornings.  I office at home, so I am able to pretty much decide when and what I need to work on. In the Spring and Fall, I garden because I want my yard to have flowers throughout the year.   I am also a birdwatcher, the Hill Country has beautiful birds.  I  know that I have the best office environment when I take my laptop to the breakfast room table to work and watch the birds dinning on sunflower seeds.
I do not think that I will ever stop working, I love to work, to shop, to spend time on the computers, to make a difference in the life of a 5th grader, to mentor those children that have no "role models" in their lives.  For the child, who I think will benefit from having a computer, I will refurbish an old computer, install Word, Power Point and Excell.  Once, I provide them with a computer, they suddenly become very interested in learning. Most of them have used Word and PowerPoint, but only during computer class.  I do have to teach them how to use Excel.  I start with a "To Do List", which lists the homework.  Some are very surprised when they do not have internet access, once that is clarified, they are still happy they've got the computer. The software will highlight mis-spelled words, grammer errors and with Excel, they will learn a skill that will benefit them the rest of their lives. 

I feel so blessed because I come from such an humble beginning and I the Lord has blessed me with the opportunity to help so many people.

See you at the reunion.  I will be bringing my laptop and my camera, we can also pick the 50's music for the CD.

Sally