Tom Marshall taught agriculture at Portal Middle High School for 30 years, and on Friday, he will be inducted into the Georgia Educators Hall of Fame during the 95th Annual GA FFA State Leadership Conference in Macon.
Marshall came to Portal in August 1990, and he retired in May 2020 as one of the school's most popular, influential and inspirational teachers ever.
In an interview with the Statesboro Herald in 2020, Marshall said: "I hope that my greatest accomplishment is that the thousands of students I taught knew I cared about each one of them; that I was able to serve as an example for them on how to live and make right decisions that lead to a truly successful life."
Marshall is one of three teachers who will be inducted into the Georgia Educators Hall of Fame by Billy Huges, program manager of agriculture education within the Georgia Department of Education's Career, Technical, and Agricultural Education program.
The induction is set for 3 p.m. Friday inside the Macon Coliseum, 200 Coliseum Drive. Also, the session will be livestreamed at https://georgiaffa.conferencestreamsolutions.com/session/session-four.
Marshall said his passion for agriculture began when he was a youngster. He enjoyed the outdoors at an early age, and by the time he was in middle school, he was mowing and trimming yards. He attended the College of Agriculture at the University of Florida and then took his first position as a high school agricultural teacher at Vanguard High School in Ocala, Florida.
After earning an Ed.D. from Texas A&M University, Marshall applied for teaching positions in Florida and Georgia and wound up at Portal in 1990. He never left.
Thousands of students later, the Portal community is grateful Marshall made that choice.
"Dr. Thomas Marshall was one of the best teachers I ever had," said JD White, owner of A-1 Grassroots Lawn Maintenance & Landscaping. "He was always fair to every student. He could make anybody understand anything and remember it. 'Doc' could put it in terms that anybody could understand it."
Marshall said he always tried to bring out the best in his students.
"In everything I did as a teacher, I always tried to convey several important concepts," Marshall said. "One, hard work matters in everything you do, even in the little things. And hard work and success in little things transfers to the big things of life. Just adopt a consistent attitude of hard work.
"I hope also that I accomplished helping as many students as I could see that everyone can be successful in something. The agriculture and FFA program offers such a variety of diverse opportunities that each student can find something in which to be successful.
"Whether it was growing a crop of plants in the greenhouse, building something in the shop, participating in a public speaking contest for the first time, raising an animal or winning an area or state contest, I hope I was, at least in part, responsible for all of my students to believe in themselves, build self-confidence and experience success."