"I attended Tallahassee Community College from 1978 to 1980. In my first semester I took the required English class commonly referred to as English 101.

I was confident that I would do well in this class. My personal opinion of my writing skills was pretty high. The instructor for this class was Dr. Josephine Curto. The fact that I remember her name some 30 years later should tell you something.

Our first assignment was pretty basic and we were to be graded separately on content and grammar/structure. I was devastated when my assignment was returned to me with a “B” for content, and a “D” for grammar and composition. It turns out I was way too liberal with my commas. Dr. Curto drilled us on the proper use of commas and sentence structure, as well as many other fundamental writing skills. To this day I still have the “comma” handout with handwritten notes from that class. I may not always get things right, but you can bet I think about those commas every time I write.

As I reflected on my days at TCC, I learned more about Dr. Josephine Curto and her impact on the school and its students. I am proud that I had the privilege to be one of her students!