Glenda Denny Adams

Year Inducted: 2025

Glenda Denny Adams was the youngest of eight children born to James and Virginia Denny in the Woodlawn community of Wilkes County. Early in life, she developed a love for reading, and after finishing her chores, she liked nothing better than sitting on the front porch reading and reading for hours.

After finishing elementary school at Woodlawn Elementary, Glenda attended Lincoln Heights High School where she played basketball for four years. Little did she know that she would meet her future husband, James Adams, at Lincoln Heights. After graduation, Glenda received a scholarship to Livingstone College to pursue a career in education. James journeyed to North Carolina A & T State University to pursue a career in agriculture. After college, James began his lifelong career for the US Department of Agriculture and Glenda began her passion, teaching. She acquired a position in special education. During the next few years, she taught at Lincoln Heights High School, C.C. Wright, and Fairplains Elementary Schools.

As a special education teacher, Glenda became increasingly aware of the number of children who couldn’t read and who, for various reasons, needed extra help to succeed. Touch by the desperate needs of the students, she decided to devote her career to improving their lives so that they too, would be productive citizens. A strong teacher, Glenda was honored and recognized early in her career in Outstanding Young Women of America (1973) and Outstanding Elementary Teachers of America (1974). She is also a recipient of the Order the Long Leaf Pine, the highest civilian honor given by the state, in recognition of her public service.

Glenda became a strong advocate for children with special needs. She left the classroom in 1975 and was hired as a consultant for children with disabilities in the North Central Region of North Carolina. Based in Greensboro, she traveled to multiple school systems, including Winston-Salem, Greensboro, and Durham, to offer assistance. Her mission was to ensure that each school system understood and complied with state and federal laws, thereby protecting themselves from negative audits, prosecutors, and federal authorities and safeguarding their state and federal funding. Most importantly, though, she wanted her fellow educators to know what to do and what was right for these children and their parents.

In the late 1970’s, she was hired as a regional consultant for children with disabilities at the Northwest Regional Education Center in Wilkes County. In this position, she worked with 23 school systems, providing training and technical assistance to special education and regular classroom teachers. To ensure that new teachers were equipped with the same information, she worked with several colleges and universities, including Salem College, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Greensboro, Appalachian State University and Lenoir-Rhyne University. She also served as adjunct professor at Appalachian State University.

When the Northwest Regional Education Center became the Northwest RESA (Regional Education Service Agency) Glenda’s role changed. Her role was expanded as she and her coworkers became instructional specialists while maintaining their role as consultants. She was named team leader for a group of four consultants. They were to meet with school leadership to review test data, graduation data and other performance measures to identify areas of need, develop and help implement an improvement plan for each school system.

Glenda is a faithful member of Danner’s Chapel Church where she serves as Sunday school teacher, chairman of the deacon board, church clerk, and treasure. She is editor for the international newsletter for the FBH Church, which is distributed globally to Ghana, Virgin Islands, Bahamas, England and Canada. She is also district director of missionary programs for fifteen churches.

Glenda also served on and led several local boards, CareNet counseling of Wilkes, where she was chairman for six years, past president of the Friends of the Wilkes County Library, Wilkes County Advisory Library Board, Health Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, Wilkes Senior Resource Center and Vice President for Wilkes County Retired School Personnel.

Glenda is active in her sorority. She joined Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. while in college. She has served as parliamentarian, vice president, chairman for the scholarship committee of the Nu Alpha Zeta graduate chapter.

Glenda is retired, but is a mediator and facilitator for the North Carolina State Department of Public Instruction, to resolve issues between school systems, parents, attorneys, and advocates.

In spite of her busy schedule, Glenda makes time for family. Son LaMonte, his wife Zarah and their two children, James Leonard and Mia, live in Glenside, PA. Son Ian, his wife, Brigett and their son Bailey live in North Wilkesboro.