Donna Jean Nutter Gilliam

Donna Jean Nutter Gilliam was born Donna
Jean Nutter on the 4th of March 1956 in
Richwood, West Virginia, the United States
of America. She was born to Herbert Lee Nutter, Sr.,
a coal miner by profession, and Cleo Cletis Nicholas
Nutter, a housewife and mother at that time. Donna
was raised with five younger brothers and no sisters
in the rural mountains of West Virginia.
Donna enjoyed life and school. She went on to graduate
in 1974 from Cowen High School in Upperglade,
West Virginia in the top ten of her graduating
class. In 1975 she graduated with honors from West
Virginia Career College, a business school. Later as
a young mother, Donna returned to college at the
University of Charleston where she majored in Art,
Education and carried a French minor. She obtained
an Art Education Teaching permit from the State of
West Virginia. While here Donna received the Excellence
in French Studies Award and was a member of
The University of Charleston Theatre.
While working as a professional French teacher at
Webster County High School in Upperglade, West
Virginia, Donna returned to college once more.
From the fall of 1999 through 2008, she drove back
and forth from Charleston, West Virginia and WCHS
to attend West Virginia State University in Institute,
West Virginia. Here she completed a French Language
Major, a Spanish Language Major and obtained WV
Teaching permits for both. On March 2000, Donna
was inducted as a life-time member to Alpha Mu
Gamma Excellence in Modern Foreign Languages,
The National Collegiate Foreign Language Honor
Society.
After completing breast cancer radiation treatment,
Donna returned to school to pursue a Master of Art
in Interdisciplinary Studies from which she graduated
with honors in the spring of 2007. It is at this time
that she began her autobiography as part of a Professional
Writing Course. The manuscript was written
during the spring of 2005. It was then edited and rewritten
during the years of 2013 and 2014 so that it
could be published through Obsidiana Press.
Donna is a highly-educated mountain woman of Native
American and European decent with a passionate
zest for life. She has goals of writing, painting, sculpturing, printmaking, weaving, traveling and gardening for
the next chapters of her life.