Family, friends, and colleagues gathered recently to recognize and honor South Georgia Technical College Adult Education Dean Lillie Ann Winn on her upcoming retirement. The reception was held in the John M. Pope Center on the Americus campus.
Winn has spent over 22 years in education at the high school and collegiate level. She will officially retire from her current position, June 30, 2024. She was presented with an engraved clock thanking her for her seven years of dedicated service to the SGTC Adult Education program.
Lillie Ann Winn and her husband Greg (center right) are shown above with her family that attended the retirement reception.
“We are definitely going to miss Lillie Ann Winn,” said South Georgia Technical College President Dr. John Watford. “She joined us as the Dean of Adult Education in 2017 and she has excelled at that position. She has done an excellent job of balancing the administrative, accounting and teaching portions of that program and has used her creativity to help students returning to earn their high school equivalency diploma. The college and our adult education students have definitely benefited from her tenure.”
SGTC Vice President of Operations Karen Werling, who is over the Adult Education division at SGTC, also thanked Winn for her service. “She made my job very easy,” laughed Werling. “Because she just took care of everything and did a wonderful job. We are going to miss her.”
Other SGTC faculty, staff, and administrators as well as her family and friends also took the opportunity to recognize and honor Winn at the reception. Her children and grandchildren took part in the celebration by videotaping their heartfelt best wishes on her impending retirement.
In addition to Winn’s over two decades in the education field, she also has over two decades of work experience in the accounting and business field. She tempers her strong accounting and logical business background experience with a unique creative spirit.
She is a talented pianist and has played the piano for a number of different churches for the past 45 years. She is currently the pianist for First Methodist Church in Montezuma, but has also played at Baptist Churches in Americus and Montezuma. She has led Children’s Church, Vacation Bible School, taught in both the Sumter County and the Macon County School Systems, worked as a Career and Technical Education Director, decorated for proms, worked as an interior designer, as a bookkeeper, and as the SGTC Dean of Adult Education. She served on a number of committees at SGTC and has decorated for the SGTC Foundation Donor Dinner for the past two years. She modeled what “going the extra mile” and helping students succeed is all about.
Lillie Ann is married to Greg Winn and they will be celebrating their 43rd anniversary in October. They have three grown sons, Bradley in Louisville, KY; Nathan in Nashville, TN; and Logan in Seattle, WA. She and Greg also have two granddaughters and a grandson.
When asked what she planned to do after retirement, she laughed and said “travel.” With their children spread out across the United States, they plan to visit them more often, but they also plan to travel abroad. She also intends to still help others and practice the piano more.
“I feel like I have almost come full circle,” said Winn. “My first teaching job was at South Georgia Technical College as an adjunct business and accounting instructor at night. I did that for two and a half years and I really loved it. That is why I think I went into career tech later. These are skills that everyone needs and I enjoyed working with individuals that wanted to learn.”
