Deborah Harris learned early in life about the benefits of being a part of Girl Scouts, and she has enjoyed helping reach girls through that program as an adult.
She became a Girl Scout in kindergarten and stayed with it through sixth grade. They didn’t have as many activities as Girl Scouts do now, but she did get a chance to interact with girls from other classes after school, and they went on field trips and took part in special events such as the Roy Martin Delta Band Festival and Christmas Parade.
Of course, they also sold the famous Girl Scout cookies. She says that activity taught them how to be independent.
“Selling cookies was like our first business,” she said. “It was something we took ownership of — on how to sell cookies and go out and grab potential customers and keep those customers throughout the year.”
They learned other lessons, too.
“They really taught us to be a friend to every Girl Scout,” she said. “So that’s one thing that we learned — and that’s something that’s still in the Girl Scout pledge as of today.”
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Harris, 46, grew up in Carroll County and graduated from J.Z. George High School in 1988. She and her five siblings all live in Greenwood, as does her mother, Clara Duncan. Her father, Herman Baker, lives in Memphis.
Harris earned an associate’s degree in computer science from Mississippi Delta Community College. She worked as a bank teller at Deposit Guaranty for a year and then was a secretary at attorney Fred Clark’s office for about two years. She took a break from the work world when she married and had her first child; then, in 1998, she joined Mississippi Valley Gas, which is now named Atmos Energy. She spent 14 years as a customer service representative and then became an operations assistant, which is still her title today.
So what does this assistant assist with? “Everything,” she said with a laugh.
That includes customer service, the day-to-day work of the construction crew, accounting and Atmos’ community service.
She is asked a lot of questions when supervisors aren’t around, so she has to stay up on what’s going on, including where contractors are and what they’re doing.
Because she works at the front desk, sometimes she can be a target when a customer comes in angry about a bill or something else — but she’s well-equipped to handle it.
“When they leave the building, they’re pretty much satisfied,” she said. “I have a knack for calming the customer down.”
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Harris got back into Girl Scouts as a parent about 19 years ago. She became an assistant volunteer the next year and a troop leader a few years later. For the last four years, she has been service unit troop manager for all of Leflore County, which now includes six troops. She oversees Troop 30093 and also serves on the executive board for Girl Scouts Heart of the South. Within her troop, she works with girls from the ninth grade up, and volunteers work with the younger ones.
The biggest challenge now is to get more girls interested in the program. Her troop, which had as many as 110 girls years ago, now has only 66.
The larger numbers presented their own challenges, but “it’s very hard to say no to a child who wants to join Girl Scouts,” she said. “So what do you do? You recruit more volunteers.”
The Girl Scouts are now out selling cookies, with proceeds going toward a trip to New Orleans in May.
“Some of the kids really don’t get a chance to travel or see outside of Greenwood, and this is a great opportunity for them to branch out,” Harris said.
At one time, she planned to step away from the Girl Scouts’ work after 20 years, but now she plans to stay another four or five years.
“Every time I want to quit, I have that one girl that gets me when she’s getting ready to bridge from Brownie Scouts to Juniors,” she said. “They look so forward to being with me, so I can’t say no.”
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Harris and her second husband, Byron Harris, have been married for more than 18 years. She has a daughter, a son and two stepdaughters.
Daughter Frankesha House, 23, is studying civil engineering at the University of Mississippi. She was a Girl Scout from kindergarten through high school and now is a lifetime member. “She loves Girl Scouts, and she promotes it everywhere she goes,” her mother said.
Son Byron Harris Jr., 17, is a student at Delta Streets Academy.
The stepdaughters are Jasmine Hart, 26, who lives in Greenwood and works at Greenwood Leflore Hospital; and Darian Harris, 24, who lives in Jackson.
Deborah Harris has worked with the United Way of Leflore County as Girl Scouts representative for eight years. She also is a Rotarian and serves as co-chair of the ArtPlace Mississippi board, where she will be chair for a year starting next month.
She is a lifelong member of New St. John Christian Church and a member and worthy matron of the Order of the Eastern Star. Her chapter is True Light No. 71 of Itta Bena.
Once her Girl Scout work is done and all her children are out of school — probably five years from now — she intends to enroll at Mississippi Valley State University and study business.
Needless to say, she likes having a lot of things going on at once.
“A weekend that I don’t have anything to do — I mean, it just feels weird,” she said.
nContact David Monroe at 581-7236 or dmonroe@
gwcommonwealth.com.
