“It’s not where you start that’s important, it’s where you finish.”                                                                                                  Mamie McCullough

 Fall 1952 – Dixie, Georgia: In the early morning, 22-year-old Mamie McCullough left home on a Greyhound bus headed for Brownwood, Texas. She planned to enroll at Howard Payne University, a small Baptist College. Thirty-two hours later, she arrived with her small suitcase, two feed sack dresses her mother made, a half-empty sack of fried chicken, and $25.

The day after registering for classes, Mamie was called to the financial affairs office. The registrar asked, “Tell me, young lady, how do you expect to pay your tuition?” Mamie was surprised. She didn’t realize that she had to pay money to attend college. She asked, “How much is the bill?” The registrar responded, “$600 per semester.” Mamie stared in disbelief. Her mother had only paid $400 for their little house.

Mamie told the registrar, “Mam, I don’t have any money, but I can work. My sister told me that I could work my way through college, and that’s what I aim to do.” The registrar asked, “Well, what can you do?” “I can crop tobacco and pick peas, and I have sold Grit Magazines with some success.”

Realizing that she had made a terrible mistake and having spent her money on bus fare and books, Mamie returned to her dorm room and cried herself to sleep. She didn’t even have enough money to get home.

Mamie McCullough was raised on a small farm 10 miles from the Florida line. Her father died of a heart attack when she was three, leaving her mother, who had a second-grade education, to raise nine children. Mamie’s oldest brother dropped out of high school and got a job in a cotton mill so their mother could afford the $10/month payment on their house and keep the family together.

The day after her embarrassing visit with the Howard Payne registrar, Mamie decided to leave school. But unsure how to withdraw, in her naiveté, she went to the office of Dr. Guy Newman, the college president, to tell him she was leaving. After hearing Mamie’s story, he encouraged her to stay a few days and give college a try.

Dr. Newman was so moved by Mamie’s situation that he invited her to live with him and his wife during her first year. He found her a part-time job working for Bennett Construction Company, which patiently trained her to be a secretary. Mamie went to class in the morning and worked in the afternoons. She saved enough money to return to the dorm during her sophomore year.

Mamie worked her way through Howard Payne at the construction company, graduating with a teaching degree in business education in the summer of 1963. After college, she worked full-time for Bennett Construction for six years, eventually becoming a Vice President.

In 1969, after a short marriage and divorce, Mamie returned to Dixie and found a job as a schoolteacher. At age 34, she heard motivational speaker Zig Ziglar at an event in Atlanta. After hearing Ziglar present his program of healthy self-image, a positive attitude, and goal setting from his bestselling book See You at the Top, Mamie knew the program needed to be taught to students.

A year later, Mamie introduced the See You at the Top program to her students at her new school, Central High School in Thomasville, Georgia. Central became the first school in America to teach Zig’s book. Mamie called her program “I Can” and found that her students improved their self-image and grades dramatically.

The success of the program, which led to Mamie becoming the school principal at Central, also resulted in her getting a call from Zig Ziglar. He told her, “Miss Mamie, I talked to the Lord this morning, and He said you were going to come to work for me.” Without hesitation, she replied, “That’s interesting, I talked to Him this morning, and He didn’t mention it.”

Mamie eventually joined the Dallas, TX-based Zig Ziglar Corporation in 1979 and became President of the I Can Education Division.  She worked for Zig for ten years, reaching more than five million students worldwide with her curriculum. A decade later, Mamie started her own motivational consulting company, Mamie McCullough and Associates. She has written 16 motivational books, including the most popular, I Can. You Can Too!

Today, at age 86, Dr. Mamie McCullough still travels extensively, speaking to schools, churches, and businesses with her positive message: If I can, then you can too. A lifetime away from the small South Georgia farm and Howard Payne University in Brownwood, TX, the I Can lady has been one of America’s most popular motivational speakers for more than 40 years.