The Varnado Family's Unique Educational Journey and Its Impact on Future Generations
- Donald V. Watkins
- Jan 3
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 7
By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on January 3, 2026
Rev. Willie Lewis Varnado and his wife Oda Etta Carmichael, my maternal grandparents, had five children -- daughter Pearl from Rev. Varnado's first marriage, Willie, Jr., Doris, Lillian (my mother), and Ernestine.
Oda was a stay-at home mom and Willie was a well-known Baptist preacher. The couple’s three biological daughters -- Doris, Lillian, and Ernestine -- were constantly referred to as the "Varnado girls."
The Varnado girls and their oldest two siblings spent their childhood years in Canton, Mississippi. When Willie Varnado secured a more prominent ministerial position in Jackson, the family moved to that city.
The Varnado children attended and graduated from the distinguished laboratory school on the campus of Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi in the 1930s. Doris graduated on time but deferred going to college until Lillian graduated from the laboartory school. Ernestine skipped two school grades because of her exceptional academic performance and graduated with Lillian.
All three Varnado girls entered Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee together. The girls lived together, pledged Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority together, and graduated from college together with academic honors. They were best friends for life.
Siblings Pearl and Willie, Jr., attended and graduated from Jackson State College with academic honors. Pearl became the "Supervisor of Colored Schools" in Meridian, Mississippi. Willie, Jr., became a top government executive in Detroit, Michigan.
While the Varnado girls were attending Lane College, Rev. and Mrs. Varnado moved to Memphis after Willie received a more prestigious ministerial positionin the city.
Upon graduation from college, Doris returned to Jackson where she co-founded, co-owned, and co-managed Conic Beauty and Barber Supply Company in with her high school boyfriend, Frank N. Conic. Lillian took a teaching job at Burt High School in Clarksville, Tennessee, where she met, fell in love with, and married Levi Watkins, a math teacher and the school's assistant principal. Ernestine took a math teaching job in Memphis, Tennessee, where she met, fell in love with, and married fellow school teacher and local businessman Walter P. Guy, Jr. Ernestine would later transition into financial accounting positions at two Memphis-area colleges.
After Lillian married Levi, she became a stay-at-home mom to her six children.
Lillian’s August 16, 1939 teacher’s certificate from the state of Tennessee qualified her to teach high school classes in “Education, French, Home Economics, Music, Science, including Biology, Chemistry, General Science, Physics, Social Science, including only Civics, History, and Sociology." We were home schooled in these subjects long before we ever showed up in a school classroom. Mom's home schooling supplemented our classroom instruction and continued until we graduated from high school.
Except for four years in the public schools of Memphis when Levi was president of Owen Junior College in the late 1950s, Levi and Lillian enrolled their children in the prestigious Douglass School in Parsons, Kansas and the academically advanced laboratory school on the campus of Alabama State College in Montgomery, Alabama.
Looking back on it today, the decision of Willie and Oda Etta Varnado to (a) enroll their children in the laboratory school at Jackson State and (b) enroll the Varnado girls together at Lane College, coupled with the next generation decision of Levi and Lillian Watkins to enroll their children in the Douglass School and laboratory school at Alabama State (with supplemental and continuous home schooling), gave my five siblings and me an enormous head start in the academic competition we would face throughout the course of our educational experiences -- regardless of the race or socio-economic status of other competing students.
The Varnado family's unique educational journey makes it possible and likely that I will reach all of my personal and business goals for 2026 and beyond.
My ultimate goal is to become the sole owner of one of America's 32 NFL teams. I want to achieve this goal for my parents, my siblings, and the teachers in the small all-black laboratory school I attended as a child on the campus of Alabama State University in Montgomery, Alabama. I learned about professional sports team ownership as a child from a Watkins family friend in Memphis who owned the Birmingham Black Barrons baseball team from 1939 to 1952. I have plenty of time, resources, experience, and opportunities to reach this goal. No event or person will stop me from reaching this ultimate goal. See, https://www.donaldwatkins.com/post/a-black-business-icon-and-watkins-family-friend-owned-the-birmingham-black-barons-baseball-team
The heavy emphasis on world history, foreign languages (e.g., Spanish, French, and Latin), geography, and the sciences in high school has been an invaluable tool in navigating international business. Today, Watkins/Varnado family members are multilingual and live and work in nations on three continents.
The choices we make in education greatly impact future generations. This article illustrates how and why.