Remembering
Dr. Valree Fletcher Wynn The Cameron University community mourns the death of groundbreaking Professor Emeritus Valree Fletcher Wynn, died on September 25 at her home in Lewisville, Texas.
Born on May 9, 1922, in Rockwall, Texas, Wynn grew up in Sentinel, Okla., during an era when there was no school for African-American children. Her parents understood the value of an education, so they lobbied for - and eventually won – the right to build a school. Because her mother had already taught her to read, Wynn started school in the third grade. During a 2007 interview for the Oral History Project featuring inductees in the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, Wynn explained, “The first day, the teacher gave me a book and told me to read until I missed a word and that would be the grade she put me in. That is how I started school in the third grade.” After that school burned down, Wynn continued her education in Sentinel, first in a brush arbor built by her father and community members, then in her own house, where her parents moved the benches in the winter. 6
CAMERON UNIVERSITY
“That’s how much my parents valued education,” she explained. After completing the eighth grade, Wynn was sent to Lawton to attend high school, staying with family friends. After graduating from Douglass High School in 1939, she attended junior college in Pueblo, Colo., where she lived with an aunt and uncle. “This was my first experience in an integrated system, and I had to make a tremendous adjustment,” Wynn said. “I could not believe that students of other races (teachers, too) accepted me as an equal and were my friends. It was a totally new (and pleasant) experience.” Two years later, she enrolled at Langston University. “Social life was great until World War II took away all the eligible young men,” she recalled. “We spent our time studying, playing bridge and writing love letters. There were three published teachers on the English faculty. I had found my niche. I became an English major.” After earning a bachelor’s degree in 1943, she enrolled at Oklahoma State University to pursue a master’s degree, which she completed in 1951. “One instructor came to me in class one day and handed me a paper I had written for the class and said, ‘I didn’t know you were that intelligent.’ That statement remained with me the entire time while I was at OSU. In the integrated situation, I always had to ‘prove’ myself.” She credits one of her OSU professors for changing her life.
