Women's Tribute: Myra Carlock

Myra Carlock is Bethel University’s director of Campus Operations and University Events who has brought to the position skills and a worldview from her former career in social work.

She was born to Jimmy and Wilanne Little and grew up on a farm in Calfkiller, Tenn. as well as in Cookeville. Her father was a real estate broker in addition to farming, and her mother was a professor at Tennessee Tech University, prompting the dual farm-city life.

After graduating from Cookeville High School, she attended the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and earned a bachelor’s degree in Child and Family Studies, Intervention and Counseling. She would later earn a Masters of Art in Education in Curriculum and Instruction from Bethel College in 2003.

She began her career in social work at Plateau Mental Health Center in a home-based intervention program for at-risk children.

She met Jon Carlock when he became the associate pastor at her church in Cookeville. Jon had graduated from Bethel and returned to McKenzie in 1993 as the chaplain and a professor of religion. The pair were engaged in December of that year and married in June 1994, and Myra moved to McKenzie.

She first worked for Carey Counseling Center on the crisis line and also at Poplar Bend, a 24-hour treatment facility.

Next, she worked for Youth Villages for 13 years, first as a counselor and eventually as clinical supervisor of in-home services for the Paris program. She also worked in therapeutic foster care and in a program for children transitioning out of the system into real life.

She was hired by Bethel University in 2010 for university and alumni relations and, later, events.

Myra told The Banner, “The first meeting on my first day, the director of development said, ‘Homecoming is this date, Bethel Blast is this date, plan it.’ So, I jumped in, and I’ve loved every minute of it.”

She became the director of campus operations in 2018 and has been Wildcat mascot Rowdy’s personal assistant since his introduction in 2021.

Myra spoke about her choice to enter social work. “I had absolutely the best parents and the best childhood. I had aunts and uncles and a grandmother and cousins, and we were all together all the time, and I felt like every child deserved as much as possible to have a great childhood. And If I could be any part of making that happen, then that’s what I was gonna do.

“I have the greatest respect for people who do that, but there was a huge learning curve. You sit through classes, you read the textbooks, but until you’re in the field, you have no idea. I think everybody goes in thinking that they can make a change, that they can make a difference, and you do. You sometimes don’t ever know what kind of difference or what kind of change you’ve made. You just hope and you pray that those things happen because of whatever you or the company did.

“There were some eye-opening experiences, there were some truly meaningful moments, and I will be forever thankful that I had the opportunity to do that.

“I became pretty competent at de-escalating situations. Typically, I could do that with the skills that were taught and also with a dose of humor. There was one young person who was absolutely completely enraged at me for something I had asked her to do. She called me [a colorful insult] and I corrected her grammar. She laughed, and then it was over.

“I watched one child grow from someone who always had the ability but had serious doubts in their ability and had not had the opportunities. I watched that child go from struggling in school to being the valedictorian of their class and ultimately going into social work as a result of her time in the program.”

She spoke about the differences and ties between the two pillars of her career.

“In social work, in children and adolescent mental health, you know that some of the decisions you make will result in huge life changes for someone else. No matter what, it’s going to result in something major in the life of another person. There are crisis calls in the middle of the night; there are situations that you would never imagine can happen.

“There is stress and anxiety in all jobs, but here with events and campus operations, you know it’s not life-or-death. It’s an important decision, a decision about whether or not something is going to go as planned, but for the most part, you can keep that to yourself and fix it behind the scenes so nobody else knows. In [social work], everybody knows.

“The connection, I think, although it translates differently, is caring for other people. It’s providing perhaps something that they didn’t have. It’s hospitality. It’s extending kindness and a sense of fun and a sense of meaning perhaps in situations where there may not have been that.

“I think our students come to us in a certain mindset, and throughout all of the experiences, whether it’s an event or their classes, they develop a broader worldview and they develop different ways of looking at things. For our faculty, for our staff, for the students, I want them to have a good experience, a holistic experience. I want them to be able to think back on their time as an employee or a student at Bethel and think, ‘Wow, that was fun. We did this.’

“I want them to carry on something that we as a whole have given them.”

She named some of her favorite Bethel experiences. “Bethel Blast was always fun. One year we had hot air balloons and invited the community. We did the Twinkle Ball for about ten years. That will always be one of my favorite things. I hope a whole generation of little girls have fond memories, and their mommas. The events that I’ve partnered with the city for have always been fun. The Boo Bash, the Easter egg hunt.”

She added, “I love graduation. Some of the students that have been most involved, I love to see them going off into their future. I’m always teary-eyed at graduation. And I’ve loved the partnerships that I’ve gotten to do with the Carroll County Humane Society and Companion Pet Rescue.”

Myra serves as the president of the McKenzie Chamber of Commerce, and Jon is minister at First Presbyterian USA.

Myra spoke about the progress of women in her lifetime. “Women’s roles have expanded greatly in my lifetime. I think little girls of my generation were taught that you can be and do anything you want to be and do. And we’ve seen that. There’s a way to go, but we’ve seen that over the years. We’ve had female astronauts. Women on the Supreme Court. Women as executives. Women candidates for the presidency. We’ve had women in all sorts of positions that probably in past generations would not have been open to them, and I see the horizons expanding for the upcoming generation.

“I don’t think there’s any stopping what women can do, what they can be, what they aspire to. And I think that girls should be encouraged, just as much as little boys.

“I have been very fortunate. My parents really did instill the belief in me that I could do and be whatever I wanted to be. I have had to prove myself. And that’s absolutely something that I have been willing to do.

“I guess the worst probably is I’ve had people doubt me, doubt that I was going to be able to do what I said that I could do, and my response is generally ‘Watch me.’

“I have been so fortunate. I have been welcomed, I’ve been loved. I hope that I show that love to other people through actions, things that I do, events that we have, the way that we take care of our students and the way that we take care of our faculty and staff. I hope I mirror the examples that I was given.”