MB
Melanie Blanton
  • Class of 2018
  • Hahira, Georgia

Melanie Blanton Continues 100-Year Family Legacy At VSU Graduation

2018 May 8

When Melanie Blanton walked across the stage on May 5 to receive a Bachelor of Science in environmental geosciences, she was continuing a family legacy that dates back more than a century.

Blanton's great-great-grandmother, Alice Herrin Davis, was one of three women who made up the first graduating class of South Georgia State Normal College (now VSU) in 1914. That year, Davis and her two fellow graduates planted a live oak tree - The Graduation Tree - at the Patterson Street entrance to the school.

"I've always heard my parents talk about that tree, and because of where I parked for class, I've walked under it almost every day," Blanton said.

Blanton was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but moved to South Georgia as a teenager and graduated from Lowndes High School. Her parents are Brooke and Steve Blanton of Hahira, Georgia.

"The tree and what it represents is a really cool legacy, and my parents are really proud of it," she said.

Blanton said a couple highlights from her time at VSU were enjoying the picturesque campus and taking part in basketball and softball intramurals with Campus Recreation. She was also a member of the Geoscience Student Society.

She has found employment with The Scruggs Company in Hahira, where she will handle quality control in the construction company's labs.

Blanton said earning her degree and moving forward into the next chapter of her life is like "a breath of fresh air."

The Graduation Tree is the first stop on the Historical Plants Tour, which highlights the unique plants and plant-related places of VSU's heritage. Videos explaining the location and significance of each stop can be accessed at https://www.valdosta.edu/administration/finance-admin/campus-wellness/vsu-walking-trail/ or by QR code at each stop.

About Valdosta State University:

Established in 1906, Valdosta State University is a premier comprehensive university that offers both the extensive academic, cultural, and social opportunities of a major university and the small classes and close, personal attention of smaller institutions. It boasts more than 100 degree, certificate, and endorsement programs on campus and online for undergraduate and graduate students. It also has a full menu of extracurricular activities, from national championship athletic and academic teams to honors organizations, sororities and fraternities, intramural sports, educational and service clubs, a symphony orchestra, art and theatre, research opportunities, and more. Even as underclassmen, students file patents on inventions and make life-changing scientific discoveries, present at national and international conferences, publish research in collaboration with their professors, work in campus-based clinics that benefit the community, live and learn at partner institutions around the globe through study abroad, and more. The possibilities are endless.