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Like a rolling stone

Amy Bird

When Ph.D. student Sheryl Wells isn’t studying for her next exam, you can find her roaming the back roads near her home in Milledgeville, Ga., on her Harley. Photos courtesy of Sheryl Wells

As a 44-year-old agronomy and soils Ph.D. candidate at Auburn University, Sheryl Wells is what is typically considered a “nontraditional” student. But “nontraditional” is just the half of it.

After Wells finished high school in 1980, her first move was fairly traditional — cosmetology school. She worked as a cosmetologist for eight years until she sensed she was ready for a change. Her next step was a little less predictable. She became a corrections officer with the Texas Department of Corrections in 1986 and worked at the Ferguson Unit in Huntsville, Texas, for four and a half years before deciding it was time to re-evaluate once more.

Again, she decided to go in a completely different direction — back to school.

“In 1987, I started studying horticulture at Sam Houston State University,” she says, attributing the move to a love of agriculture. “I grew up in rural Texas, and we had a big garden. I always knew I would be doing something like that.”

As she made her way through her undergraduate studies, Wells discovered a keen interest and aptitude in her turf management classes. In the final year of her studies, she applied for a job on the crew at Bentwater Yacht and Country Club in Montgomery, Texas. Her plan was to work on the crew while completing a master’s degree in agriculture, and then find an assistant superintendent position and work her way up.

Sheryl Wells, Ph.D. student Milledgeville, Ga. Auburn University Years as a GCSAA member: 11

But then she met her late husband, Terry, and life began taking a few turns.

The long and winding road
Terry’s job required them to move from Texas to Tennessee, which interrupted her master’s program and her place in the pecking order at Bentwater. In Tennessee, she started over, joining the crew at Pine Oaks Golf Club in Johnson City. Her husband’s job then took them to West Virginia, where she found a job as second assistant at Sleepy Hollow Golf Club in Hurricane. She worked there one year before she was offered a position as second assistant back home at Bentwater in Texas. This time, her husband followed her, and they again packed their things and headed west.

Yet, Wells’ meandering path was yet to straighten. After two years in Texas, her husband received an irresistible job offer in Georgia. Wells took the opportunity to use her experience to land a job as an assistant superintendent during the construction and grow-in of Oakview Golf and Country Club in Macon, Ga. In 1999, she took the reins as superintendent.

Over the next three years, however, Wells watched her operating budget dwindle and management support wane. It was time, once again, to reassess. Although she was in a field she loved, she yearned to finish her studies. In 2002 she created the balance she’d been looking for, moonlighting as a substitute assistant at The Golf Club at Cuscowilla in Eatonton, while working toward her master’s in biology at Georgia College and State University with her sights set on obtaining a Ph.D. She and Terry, who was a criminal justice professor at Georgia College and State University, hoped to eventually share their summers together.

“I’d like to teach, as well as conduct research, at the university level,” she says. “My husband’s job always conflicted with mine in the summer — (teaching) is a great profession — we were going to travel together and see the world.”

In 2004 she applied to the Ph.D. program in Auburn, where she’d be close enough to get home on the weekends. Set to begin the program in January 2006, everything was working according to the plan when tragedy struck last fall, sending yet another curve her way.

Wells’ husband died in October 2005 after suffering a heart attack.

Following her husband’s death, Wells said she welcomed the stability and purpose of her career path and was determined to continue on the road she was traveling.

“It is certainly a sacrifice, but in the end I think it will be worthwhile,” she says. “It’s difficult losing retirement at this time, but the transition has been OK. I’ve always enjoyed taking classes, so it isn’t that difficult.”

Wherewithal
From a woman with Wells’ resolve, though, “difficult” may be a relative term. Throughout her life, she has targeted difficult situations and career moves and found success each time. As a woman in a predominantly male industry, Wells admits she has faced some scrutiny. However, she is quick to add how important it is to be true to yourself and not listen to the naysayers.

“At times it has been difficult; some men think you aren’t capable of doing a job well in this industry, while others will go above and beyond to give you opportunities,” she says. “Just be persistent and professional and prove yourself, and don’t give up. Though it can be discouraging, it can also be a very enjoyable profession.”

And she adds that it helps to know your strengths. “The field I’m in is plant and soil science — you keep me in this field and I do wonderful. If I stray, say, to the math department,” she says with a laugh, “that is my weakness.”

Enjoying life
For Wells, life is about sitting in the driver’s seat. And she has taken that notion quite literally. Having grown up riding motorcycles, she and her husband started riding again a few years ago, which revived Wells’ love of the open road.

She now spends what free time she has on her Harley 883 Sportster. “My ultimate goal, though, is to ride my husband’s Road King — it’s the Cadillac of all motorcycles. Just huge,” she says with reverence. An avid outdoorswoman, she also makes time to fish and hike around the hills surrounding her Milledgeville, Ga., home. And, true to her calling, she spends a lot of time in her yard, tending to her garden.

When looking back at her path, Wells admits that she wouldn’t necessarily encourage others to wait as long as she did to pursue their passions. “The only thing I’d say is probably not to wait so late in life to do it,” she says wryly. “It does get harder. Despite her late start, though, Wells is happy with the choices she’s made and optimistic about her future once she finishes the three-year program at Auburn. “I’m free to go where the job offers are,” she says, pausing to take account of her Southern roots. Free, that is, to go “anywhere it doesn’t snow.”

Amy Bird is editor of Newsline’s GCSAA This Week.

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