CityView Magazine

24 July 2022 who believed in me. Leadership pushed me harder than I could ever imagine." As a woman in a male-dominated profession, Murray credits many of her male leaders with helping her become what she is today. It started with her father, who was shell-shocked and cloistered in a hospital aer the Vietnam War. He inspired her to pursue a military career. She was with him when he died and still tears up when remembering his last words to her. Another supporter, according to Murray, is her husband, Alfred Murray. ey met in Kitzigen, Germany, while both were in the Army. Aer their daughter was born, the pair decided that one of them should retire from the Army and care for her. ey made a deal: e first one to get the retirement papers through the system would retire. She did not know that he had already started the process and was ahead of her, she says with a chuckle. Murray's husband made sure she was always a part of her daughter's life, whether she was stateside or deployed. "I could not have had a better husband when it came to our daughter," she says. "He videoed everything she did while I was deployed." Murray herself retired in early 2016. at August, she ran into the JROTC colonel at Pine Forest High School, who persuaded her to look into becoming an instructor with the program. He told her that there were not enough women in JROTC. "Once again, someone saw something in me. God pre-positions his angels," she says of the chance encounter. She took to teaching youngsters about the military and life in general. She was so good, in fact, that two years into her teaching career, Cumberland County Schools named her Teacher of the Year. At the end of the 2021-22 school year, she readied her cadets for graduation with long days of practicing their role in the ceremonies at the Crown Expo Center. And while other students were enjoying their end-of-school break, several of her cadets returned to school to clean out lockers and move furniture. Jay Haggins, a 2022 South View graduate and private first class, says his first year enrolled in JROTC was more than he expected. "It was my best class," says Haggins, who plans to follow his sister's path and enroll in college ROTC. Cadet Sgt. Clarisse Gellor moved here In April, President Joe Biden recognized Murray with the President's Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest designation of the President's Volunteer Service Award program. Ruby Murray says her husband, Alfred Murray, has been one of her biggest supporters.

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