Campus Updates

Class of 1930 Graduation Ring with MGA Ties a Priceless Heirloom for Cochran Family

  • 29 January 2024

From Sonja Curtis's earliest memories, the ring has loomed large in her life.

It’s a 14-karat gold class ring, worn smooth with age, that her mother, Ruth Monteen Cook, received in 1930 when she graduated from what many in Cochran and the surrounding communities apparently still referred to as New Ebenezer College, although by that time it had become Middle Georgia College.

Read more about the significance of the ring to the Curtis family and to MGA.

Sonja Curtis, shown in Ebenezer Hall on the Cochran Campus. She is wearing her mother's class ring and is surrounded by grade reports and other papers her mother kept from her days at Middle Georgia College in the late 1920s to 1930. From Sonja Curtis's earliest memories, the ring has loomed large in her life. It’s a 14-karat gold class ring, worn smooth with age, that her mother, Ruth Monteen Cook, received in 1930 when she graduated from what many in Cochran and the surrounding communities apparently still referred to as New Ebenezer College, although by that time it had become Middle Georgia College. “My mother lived on a farm in Roddy, about 10 miles outside of Cochran,” Curtis said. “She used to talk about driving to the campus in a Model T Ford and sometimes slipping and sliding on the muddy roads. She had a deep desire to get an education and to be constantly learning. She worked hard for that.” Cook, who went on to establish a career in full-time and substitute teaching, wore the ring her entire adult life. She died in 1996 at the age of 86. Since then, Curtis has proudly worn the ring, inscribed on the head with the initials RMC, not only to honor her mother’s memory but to pay tribute to a historic college that is now part of Middle Georgia State University (MGA). “This school has done so much for our family and for the community,” said Curtis, who herself attended Middle Georgia College in the 1960s. In 1884, the New Ebenezer Baptist Association established New Ebenezer College, a junior college, in

Archives

Categories