Don’t miss Dr. Muriel O’Tuel’s personal and professional growth book — a must for all ages who need encouragement or a jump start for successful living in an ever changing world.
What Muriel Says
My first name is Muriel. I like the sound of it when it’s pronounced in the languid cadence of my native South. On the cultivated Southern tongue, it has a smooth flow, like molasses pouring onto hot, buttered pancakes in a warm country kitchen on a cold morning; like the lazy flow of the Pee Dee River as it slinks through the Low Country on its way to Winyah Bay.
When I was born, “Muriel Ward” was the name that went on my birth certificate, but my family did not speak with the cultivated Southern tongue. Theirs was a backwoods dialect that shortened and hardened the name into “Merle.” The distance between Merle and Muriel was the distance between ignorance and education; between high school and college; between drudgery and fulfillment. I have trodden those paths, and have earned the third syllable in my name. In the world of challenge and success in which I now walk, my name is Muriel, not Merle. There’s a doctor in front of it, thanks to the Ph.D. I earned from the University of South Carolina, and the last name is O’Tuel, thanks to my marriage to a wonderful man who encouraged me to go for the doctorate, and who has been at my side throughout my career in education and speaking.
If, on the sidewalks and beneath the shades of Tabor City, North Carolina, my family and old friends still call me Merle, I am comfortable. It reminds me of my roots and of the distance I have come. It helps me to remind others that they too can make that trek. This book is intended to help people chart their own paths to achievement and fulfillment.
What others say
It isn’t often that a book with a motivational theme turns out to be an exciting piece of story telling. But there’s a dynamic quality to the life of Muriel O’Tuel that is like the fascinating experience of a kid listening to his favorite teacher regaling the class with a learning adventure she had lived through. Having known Muriel for many years, and seeing her too through the eyes of a daughter whose scholastic life had meshed with hers, have made this story of her years in the wild world of academia a thrilling one. The wide scope of her talents takes her from educator to public speaker, whose personality sparkles like sand in the sun. Maybe you’ll see yourself in this portrait, or maybe you’ll remember that very special person who guided you through those trepidatious years of growing up, or perhaps you can be prodded into being one of the “good guys” others can look up to. This old world sure needs that.