They look like college roommates. One is a sergeant in the U.S. Army stationed at Maryland’s Fort Meade working in military intelligence. The other one is her mother.
This month, they both walked across the stage at Valdosta State University and received their diplomas - graduating with three psychology degrees between them.
Conyers native Stacey Skinner Brantley graduated from Salem High School in 1996. She finished a year of dual enrollment before heading off to Tifton and completing her associate’s degree in forestry at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College. And then came 27 years of full-time motherhood.
“It had always been the plan to go back to college when Gracen went to kindergarten, but then Dayton came along,” Brantley said. “I said, I don’t know that I could do that with four kids. So, we just kept putting it off. It got to where I had only one kid at home, and he was almost 16 and self-sufficient in a lot of ways. I said, now is the perfect time to get it done. My family and my kids, especially Gracen, said, ‘Yes, Mom. Do it.’”
Credit: Family handout
Credit: Family handout
Sgt. Gracen Brantley went to Conyers schools until her 10th grade year when the family moved to Lowndes County. Throughout middle and high school, much like her mother, she was in the color guard and band, but she also enjoyed being in the chorus, the show choir and in the musical theater group.
“I did a lot of stuff with music and theater,” she said. A 2018 Lowndes High School graduate, she was also a competitive swimmer and was recruited to an NCAA Division III school, where she went for one semester before joining the Army.
The only daughter among three brothers and described by friends and family as a “girlie girl,” Gracen surprised them all when she joined the military. It started as almost a joke.
“I was sitting with my mom at lunch,” she said. “I was in school and working full-time and having a hard time maintaining because I was going full speed. A bunch of Air Force people came in (the restaurant) to get lunch, and I said to her, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if I joined the Air Force?’”
Her mother agreed and the two shared a little laugh, but it had actually ignited a spark in Gracen, who soon found herself talking to an Air Force recruiter. She said the recruiter told her they had nothing for her in the Air Force, but not yet ready to give up, she met with an Army recruiter. After talking to him, she knew what she wanted to do. She joined the Army in 2019.
“I’ve been in about three and a half years, which was my first contract,” Gracen said. “I don’t regret it one bit. It’s had its emotional moments being so far away from home. But it has transformed my entire life. I’ve been given so many opportunities and met so many incredible people. I’m doing things that three years ago I would have never imagined doing. I love it.”
Perhaps it was the early influence of TV crime shows that now finds Gracen on her chosen career path.
“I’ve always had a thing for forensic psychology,” she said. “I think growing up I just had a really strong pull toward listening to people and finding out how they tick. Throughout the whole TV phenomena of “NCIS” and “Criminal Minds” and all those shows that kind of focus on it, I said, ‘Oh, this is super interesting. I wonder if this is a real job.’ I found you can do this at the state or the county level, and I started doing more research.”
Her “dream job” is to someday work for the FBI, possibly as a profiler. She said the Army offers an opportunity to pursue that goal and connect with others working in that field.
“I love knowing what makes people do the things they do, what sets criminals apart from other people,” Gracen said. “That’s the field I want to gravitate toward.”
She and her mother often had the same class and professors as they completed their psychology degrees online and walked together this month during graduation.
“I am beyond excited for her,” Gracen said of her mother. “My mom is a very caring, empathetic person and a wonderful listener. If you think of a therapist, you think of my mom. She is so good with kids.
“I had already declared my major at VSU and she said, ‘I want to go for psychology too.’ Even back then, I was so excited, and we kind of pushed each other to get to where we are right now. She has pushed me so far and helped me out. I wasn’t the best student, but she pushed me, and now I’m getting straight A’s. I’m over the moon about it. I’m going to be crying. She’ll be crying. Everyone will be crying. She put her mind to something and stuck with it. I can’t wait to see what she’s going to do with this degree. She’s going to be amazing.”
For more than 27 years, Stacey has shuttled her four children — and busloads of others — to ball games and school activities. Since 2008, she has also been a school bus driver, having driven for Henry and Rockdale counties and now Lowndes County.
“I love driving a school bus and helping kids,” she said. “I see so many disadvantaged kids and I say, ‘OK. What can I do to help them?’ I went toward psychology and wavered back and forth with social work. I went to psychology because it opens up more possibilities and more places I can help.”
She has already been putting what she’s learned to use as she tries to understand and help many of the children she sees on a daily basis on her bus.
“Some of them haven’t eaten,” Stacey said. “They’re 5 and 6 years old and fixing their own breakfast or one fifth-grader fixing for their siblings. There’s one little boy with holes in his shoes. There’s a kindergartner who never knows who’s meeting him at the school bus stop. Some of them don’t even know where they’re going to live this week.”
Her own family has been a mainstay for Stacey. She is the granddaughter of the late George Owens, who served as mayor of Conyers and owned Walker-Owens Furniture Company. Her parents and her sisters, Cynthia Dolan, who lives in Forsyth, and Ashley Edwards of Conyers, along with other relatives all traveled to Valdosta to celebrate their graduation.
“It’s been a long time coming,” said Stacey’s mother, Deborah Owens Skinner. “My daughter raised her four children and already had an associate’s degree from ABAC. She started last year pursuing this degree. We are so proud of her.”
She said they are also proud of their 22-year-old granddaughter and that she is the first in the Brantley family to finish college.
Mrs. Brantley said she too is proud of her daughter, as well as her other three children. After Gracen enlisted in the Army in April of 2019, her brother Dylan, 27, joined the Army that July. Mrs. Brantley said she sent two of her children off to basic training a week apart. Dylan, who is a sergeant in the 82nd Airborne, is stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina with his wife, Laken and son Kannon, 6. Mrs. Brantley’s son Gavin, who graduated from Salem High School in 2016, works for Georgia Right Of Way with Snapping Shoals EMC. He is 24 and married to his wife, Lane. Her youngest child, Dayton is a senior at Lowndes High School with plans to attend the University of Georgia.
VSU is proud of this mother-daughter accomplishment, as the university is preparing a public relations and advertising campaign featuring Stacey and Gracen.
Most of the family will soon gather and celebrate Christmas this month, ending with perhaps a tearful goodbye. Gracen will be reporting for duty in January as she has re-enlisted in the Army for four more years. She is heading to Fort Carson in Colorado to continue her work with military intelligence and begin her master’s degree in forensic psychology.
Credit: The Citizens
Credit: The Citizens
MEET OUR PARTNER
Today’s story comes from our partner, the Rockdale Newton Citizen. The Rockdale Citizen and Newton Citizen publish twice weekly in print and provide daily coverage of community news, events, and sports in Rockdale and Newton Counties at RockdaleNewtonCitizen.com.
If you have any feedback or questions about our partnerships, you can contact Senior Manager of Partnerships Nicole Williams via email at nicole.williams@ajc.com.
About the Author
