There are those who like their work, some who really like what they do.
Then there is Diane Greene, the founder and former Director of the First Baptist Church Pre-school Program in Gray.
“It was just the greatest blessing of my whole life, except for my family, my children and grandchildren,” Greene commented last week. “It was just exactly what I needed to be doing. I didn’t even really know that, but the Lord put that on my heart big, and I do give him all the credit.”
Greene, now 70, retired from her position after 36 years in 2021.
“It was just so fun,” she almost gushed. “I really got to know those little children and their families, and Jones County has some precious families. So it was just wonderful.”
The former Diane New grew up in Dublin and graduated from UGA with a degree in early childhood education in 1977. She taught school in Gwinnett County for four years while obtaining her master’s degree. She had dated Donald Greene’s best friend all through college and knew Donald as well. She was in Macon for a wedding, and her boyfriend was at a wedding in Augusta.
“I thought, who do I know in that area? And I thought, oh, I’m going to call Donald Greene. He’ll take me. So, we went, and pretty much the rest is history.
“I’d never thought of him that way,” Greene shared, “but we had so much fun together, and we were very much alike. So I came back and broke up with my boyfriend and started dating Donald. We called him Duck.”
The couple married in 1981, and she had been teaching at Gray Elementary when their first daughter, Brannen, was born in 1983. Their other child, Bethany, was born in 1986, and the Greenes today have seven grandchildren.
Greene stayed home with Brannen at first, but when the tot was nearing two years old, her mother became a little restless.
“I really still wanted to teach. I loved teaching, and I’ve always loved little children.So I thought, what can I do where I can have just a little bit of ‘lipstick money’ so I don’t have to ask Donald for every little penny when I want something?”
Greene, after talking with a friend and giving thought to it, ultimately answered her own question.
“I decided to start the pre-school, and I really wanted it in a church,” she recalled. “I just felt like that was real important. I really wanted to talk, you know, teach them about Jesus. I wanted them to know they could count on Him and how much He loved them.”
Greene said the school, which runs mornings during the school year Monday through Friday, had humble beginnings. “It started out real small,” she recalled. “I just had like two classes, and that was in 1985.”
Greene didn’t realize she was pregnant with Bethany when she started the program. Even before the doors first opened, she found someone to keep the youngest daughter until she was old enough to attend pre-school.
“I wanted her to have that experience.”
Greene explained that personal contact helped her get started.
“I just called my friends. I said, ‘If I started a pre-school, would y’all send your children?’ The majority of them were people I knew, and they said, ‘absolutely.’ You know, it was a gift for them, too, to have a little time away and know their children were in good hands and were learning. So, that’s how that happened, and then it just started growing.”
Greene pointed out that she started with three- and four-year-olds, but later added the two-year-old program. At one point, there were two classes of both three and four-year olds plus the two-year olds. Class sizes would range from 12 to 16.
“I never really advertised,” she commented. “We were always full, and we always had a waiting list. I ran at least 100 every year.”
She also noted that the number of instructors grew as well.
“I can remember the day that we didn’t have help,” Greene stated. “Just one person in the room by ourselves. I did the fouryear old program for years and years and years. It wasn’t until we moved into the brand-new building that I needed to be just the director.”
Greene recalled that some people viewed the First Baptist program as something akin to baby-sitting.
“It’s not like that,” she stressed. “I always say they learn through play, but it’s very organized. I mean, you have an agenda, and you go by it. And,” she added, “you have a curriculum. They just learn so much, and it just really prepared them for school. So I just used to say, ‘it’s like a home away from home.’” The long-time teacher/ administrator touted the benefits of the pre-school environment.
“We’re like the first ones that get to have these little children, and they’re learning to be away from their mamas. But,” she explained, “they’re in a real loving environment, and the whole time they’re playing, they are learning their ABCs, their 1-2-3s. More importantly, they’re learning social skills: how to share, how to be kind, how to get along without your mother and daddy right there.”
Greene said she and her teachers tried to offer a range of experiences for the students. There would be, for example, art projects. “And, we’d have circle time, where they’d learn to sit and pledge the flag… it just was just a fun, happy environment.” That environment, though, was ‘full of Jesus,’ she made clear. “That was very important. They learned a Bible verse every month, even the two-year-olds. We would make it simple.”
There were many other activities.
“We had special days,” she pointed out. “We’d do Back the Blue Day, where we’d have the policemen come and do something for them. We always had Grandparents Day, Mother’s Day, Daddy’s Day. We did mission projects every month. I thought it was real important to teach them to give back and to learn what giving was in the little way that their minds could understand.”
Greene continued teaching and trying to influence the children until nearly five years ago, and ending that personal involvement was a difficult move.
“I knew it was time to retire, but it was the hardest thing really I’d ever done because it was my heart. I mean,” she said with conviction, “it really was. I’d done it all those years, but I knew it was time to retire.”
Greene did leave the program, but the children and pre-school have not been her only involvement in church life by any means.
“I do the Lord’s Supper each month, and that’s fun. I have people help me, though, of course. And,” she added, “when my children were little, I was always taking care of the pre-school during Sundays and Wednesdays (services). So, my church family is real important.”
Donald Greene was also involved in the church work for a long time, his wife pointed out.
“We did baptisms forever,” she said. “We would go and get the baptismal pool all ready and get it heated up, and then we would assist the preacher and the people and get their robes on and all that.”
In fact, she shared, “Donald did that back in the day when it was just the old church, and you had to get up in the middle of the night to go light the baptistery to get the heated water. So he would get up like at 3 in the morning and have to go back like at 6 and turn the heater off so it wouldn’t be too hot.”
Since her retirement, Greene still has been ‘busy,’ including traveling. Brannen and her family are close by in Sandersville, but Bethany and her husband and four children live in Nashville.
“I try to go up there at least every month or every two months because the children just grow so fast.”
The couple goes to St. Simons at least once a month, she goes out for dinner monthly with a birthday club, and her Bible study group meets once a week. Then, there are the ‘Yahs,’ a group of her sorority sister girlfriends.
“We travel together. We’ve done that since our children were little. We used to get together when they were little, and then we started letting the daddies keep them and going to the beach. But, now we go to bigger places. Like last year, we went to New York. So they’re a big part of my life too.”
Greene, though, made it clear those 36 years and the children were a much more important part of her life. She estimated that she has seen more than 2,500 children in the pre-school program.
“My children have always said my favorite scripture was ‘my cup runneth over.’ I think that’s the best, and I’m not just saying that. I think that’s the best description. My cup just runneth over because they were really just wonderful years.”
