BY KAREN MANNING

Special to The Pilot

You can almost imagine it - a brilliantly educated woman whose life has been filled with exploration and discovery - still drawing great pleasure from the pages of the many books she's devoured over the years.

Appropriately, she's at a local library talking about Sandhills Community College. For Carolyn Brady, a lifelong learner who gets many of her answers these days from the college's division of Continuing Education and her Culinary Arts classes, it's another perfect moment.

"I'm enjoying life," she says. "I'm so grateful to be on this planet - and I'm having a wonderful time. There's so much support out there. All my learning helps me be the person I was created to be."

The learning she's referring to is a compelling blend of mindset and opportunity. On the one hand, this native New Yorker - a teacher who retired from the New Jersey school system in 2004 - has always voraciously pursued learning. She has a master's degree in education, and for two decades taught English as a second language.

Throughout her distinguished teaching career instructing students at all levels, she traveled the world, eager to further her teaching career at educational conferences, and simultaneously curious about the cultures of countless countries around the globe.

On the other hand, her opportunities for learning were spring-boarded early by a childhood in the Big Apple, where galleries and museums beckon on every corner, luring in imaginative visitors.

"Manhattan gave me an ache to be who I am," she says. "When I hear people say that New York is one of the greatest cities in the world, I understand what they mean because I was able to take advantage of what it has to offer. Back then - unlike the years that came later - it wasn't books that taught me what I needed to know, it was the museums."

Since stepping off an Amtrak train in North Carolina at the impressionable age of 12, Brady has continued to maximize her learning prospects. She now spends the bulk of her time in Pinehurst and Southern Pines, basking in the glow of her ancestral heritage (her roots are in the South), studying endlessly, still curious about life.

'Returning to Roots'

At Sandhills Community College, she's almost ravenous - a mainstay at classes offered by the continuing education division, eager to learn about anything and everything that captures her attention.

Over the last few years, that's included gardening, landscaping, Feng Shui, numerous computer classes, the art of breathing and even the art of de-cluttering - all subjects that met an immediate need.

After taking several cooking classes a few summers ago through community enrichment under the teaching of chef Fiona McKenzie, Brady's desire to build upon the things she learned that summer grew. She looked into the hospitality and culinary arts program offered by the curriculum (college credit) area of the college.

"I had to formally apply to college," she said. "The tricky part was tracking down my high school transcript. I think it was in the archives deep in the depths of the basement of the school!"

Now she is in pursuit of a degree that she says represents a deeper yearning, an associate in applied science in culinary arts. For her, studying the art of preparing and cooking foods that are as pleasing to the palate as they are to the eye is a step back in time - as much a matter of historical context as it is nutrition and etiquette.

"In New York City, there's every restaurant, every bakery and every ethnic group's approach to cooking," she says. "I 'studied' for years there. Food was always available, and people were always learning how to eat meat, how not to eat meat, how to become a vegetarian and so forth. So I dabbled in that part of history for the better part of 40 years. But now it's all different. I'm returning to my roots both from geographic and culinary perspectives."

For Brady, an African-American woman, this context is heightened by the knowledge that both of her grandmothers left the South, looking for work in New York as house help - scenes not necessarily unlike those depicted in the recent movie "The Help," though with an obviously different outcome in her own life generations later.

These days, though she hasn't set a graduation date yet (she says 2013 looks good), Brady says she has continuing to leverage her time taking continuing education courses, even while she inches toward her culinary degree. She has learned the "proper" method of table setting, the right sides for serving and pouring, and is regularly immersed in global cuisine - cooking, she says, not just studying.

'Be Guided'

Still, Brady is mindful of the contrast between her earlier days in school and Sandhills' more progressive approach to learning.

"In the beginning, it was two different worlds," she says. "Here, I'm a student in a college going for an associate's degree. I've come from an undergraduate and graduate environment, where you could type a paper and hand it in. Now almost everything is done online.

"I'm also learning how to dice, how to slice, how to correctly use a knife. It's all something that, technically, I didn't know how to do before. Why am I doing it? I just love the learning."

Brady was not sure how she would fare in classes with younger college students, but she quickly learned that community college students cover a wide age span. The younger students stepped up to help her with the technology in which they are so familiar. She sets a good example for them with her dignified manner and attention to detail the younger students often overlook.

They banter back and forth with no thought of the age differences while working in the Peggy Kirk Bell Kitchen in Little Hall.

"I'm always moving," she says, "always thinking about a thousand things and a thousand places, always needing and wanting to 'express' my life. Sandhills Community College gave me a new lease on life. The Creator is telling me, 'Let go and you will be guided.' But you know what? You have to be in it to win it."

Karen Manning is director of public relations and marketing at Sandhills Community College. She can be reached at manningk@sandhills.edu.