For Lynn Powell, teaching math and reading to struggling students at Greenville’s Duncan Chapel Elementary is more than fulfilling work—it’s a reminder of her own amazing journey from high-school dropout to author.
Struggling with undiagnosed dyslexia, Powell quit school after ninth grade and took a job in a textile plant. Functionally illiterate until the age of 26, her life began to change when she responded to a television ad for Greenville Literacy and began working with a tutor.
“Reading came to me like water,” Powell says. “I just couldn’t stop.”
After earning her GED at Greenville Tech, she enrolled at Clemson University and earned a bachelor’s degree in special education in 1997, followed by a master’s degree in learning disabilities from Furman University in 2003. She is currently planning to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology. Along the way, Powell has shared her story in the classroom, through volunteer work as a tutor with Greenville Literacy, in testimony before Congress, in national television and radio interviews and in her autobiography, Limitless, available at miriamlynnpowell.com
“The main message I would like people to take away from my story is that it’s never too late to start over,” Powell says. “It doesn’t matter where you come from; it only matters where you end up. You can do anything that anyone else can do, you just have to want it badly enough to do the work. And finally, what are you waiting for? The world doesn’t owe us anything. We are the one that has to change, so just do it!”
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Lynn Powell
AGE: 49
HOMETOWN: Greenville
PET PEEVE: “People making excuses for not trying to better their lives, because an excuse is just another way to tell a lie.”
LITTLE-KNOWN FACT: “I email Ellen DeGeneres every day because I want to be on her show.”