A busy but full life: Erma Johnson Hadley

Erma Jean Chansler Johnson Hadley worked her way up 42 years before she became chancellor of Tarrant County College.

By the time she died Thursday at 73, she had made the most of an opportunity that was long overdue.

Before she was named chancellor in 2010, Hadley already had chaired both the JPS Health Network board of directors and the D/FW Airport board, two of the most powerful public positions in Dallas-Fort Worth.

As chancellor, a job she wanted for years, she oversaw TCC’s growth to 57,424 students last fall and expansion to downtown campuses that have become a prominent part of the city skyline.

Almost from the day she became TCC’s personnel director in 1974, she was considered an up-and-coming civic leader destined for life as a “first.”

In an age when white men still ran most businesses and almost all agencies, Hadley was appointed to more than three dozen public, community or charity boards, often becoming the first woman to serve on the board and also the first person of color.

Few women or men have served the city and county longer, or accomplished more.

Ironically, she may have lost her only campaign for City Council, in 1997, because neighborhood voters viewed her as too close to downtown leaders.

Hadley has often told how as a young girl in the poor, segregation-era deep East Texas towns of Leggett and Livingston, she “thought you were rich if your house was painted on the outside.”

In a story retold in a KERA/Channel 13 Texas Trailblazers documentary, she recalled how at 3 she walked to a four-room country school each day with her older sister and cried until teachers finally let her stay.

Her mother cleaned and waited tables in a cafe to help her through Prairie View A&M University, and that struggle fueled her insistence on championing the poor and on helping other students get degrees and careers.

In every Star-Telegram profile of Hadley over the years, she is described as “driven,” or “focused,” or “impatient.”

Retired Vice Chancellor Bill Lace told the TCC Collegian last week, “When I think of Erma, I think determined, passionate, always in a hurry.”

In a 1996 Star-Telegram profile, Hadley agreed: “My patience is somewhat short when it comes to getting things done.”

Just look around at everything Hadley got done.

This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 7:28 PM with the headline "A busy but full life: Erma Johnson Hadley."