Spring Break
One non-traditional student's journey to NT
Stephanie Butts
Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: ARTS & LIFE
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An adopted child born in Wichita Falls, Hertz's birth mother placed an ad in the Fort Worth Star- Telegram advertising two children who needed good homes, Hertz said. Now almost 50 years later, Hertz has enrolled in NT's journalism department and said she expects to graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in journalism by spring 2009.
"It takes me back full circle," Hertz said.
The advertisement instructed people to meet Hertz's birth parents at an intersection at a certain time to receive the children, Hertz said. She and her brother were up for sale.
Someone came for Hertz's brother and then a family came for her, she said. Hertz said she never saw her brother again. Hertz said it was a private adoption and the state did monitor her adopted family for some time, but there were never any agencies involved.
Despite her strong loving family, Hertz struggled with her personal identity while growing up. Hertz said she always struggled with her mother about going to school and was afraid that one day she would come home and everyone would be gone.
"She used to have to drive me there to get me to go," Hertz said. "Before she could get back in the car, I would be back at the house."
Hertz planned on enrolling in NT's journalism program after graduating from R. L. Turner High School in Carrollton, where she was the editor of the school newspaper, but her mother did not support her decision, Hertz said. She said it was during the Vietnam anti-war demonstrations and Hertz's mother was against her going to college.
"She was sure I would get myself in trouble and get killed," Hertz said.
Instead Hertz got married. After moving to Dallas, she had two daughters, Stephanie and Emily, who are five years apart. Hertz said she spent some time as a stay-at-home mom but divorced her husband and became a secretary.
"When you're raising two kids, you work where there's the most money," she said.
Hertz said being a secretary was boring and she didn't enjoy the work very much.
"It's a very low-key job," she said.
Hertz said her girls would stay with her sister after school until they were old enough to be alone in the afternoons, but as they grew older, they were always involved in after school activities.
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