It’s all about connections for Terry and Nancy Dent

By Gloria Wright

Nancy and Terry Dent

The Dent family sees their lives as a series of connections. Terry Dent describes himself as a collector of experiences who believes in the strength of connectedness.

“I believe in finding and making connections,” he says, “discovering how people connect to each other in life, in science, in music.”

Nancy Dent finds motivation in music, in connecting to God, and in reading.

“By reading, one can travel anywhere in your mind,” she asserts.

The versatile couple’s move to Clinton in 1994 was preceded by their meeting at Mississippi College and then going separate ways for a time before their marriage ceremony in MC’s Provine Chapel.

Now retired from a teaching career which spanned forty-two years, Terry stays busy writing and working at Chick-fil-A. He has published three books, Forged in Fire, the story of two students with special needs; Old Bob’s Will, about a young boy and his elderly friend; and The Alphabet of Short Stories, which was inspired by Esther Camealy’s coffee table book of pictures based on the alphabet.

Terry has completed his fourth book, Curse of Brother, a story of a young man’s death investigated by his wife, and is now writing a fifth book. The illustrator for his books, Kent Mummert of Clinton, is a strong connection, since the Dents and Kent and Denise Mummert are neighbors and have been friends since college days.

Terry was born in Jackson and grew up in Holly Springs, where his father worked for a piano manufacturing company. Nancy was born in Memphis and was adopted when she was three months old. Reared in Jackson, she had no interest in finding her biological parents.

Terry has published three books, with a fourth and fifth on the way.

“Our son Sam gave me a DNA kit as a Christmas present,” she recalls, and she discovered that relatives came from Arkansas and Kosciusko, with no definite information released from the permanently closed adoption records.

After high school years, Terry began his college years first studying music, then changed to biology at Mississippi College. Nancy was studying biology and switched to music. According to Terry, they met “in the back road of the band.”

After graduation, Terry moved back to Holly Springs, where he taught high school science. He transferred to Clinton to be near Nancy, who, at the time, was working as band director at Madison Ridgeland Academy.

A detour in their lives and teaching careers came when Terry felt the call to serve as a missionary, perhaps inspired by the service of family members. His mother was active in the Women’s Missionary Union (WMU), and his grandmother served as the housemother at the Baptist School of Nursing. Two of his brothers were missionaries, one in Singapore and the other in the Philippines. Terry’s call took him to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was a science teacher and music minister at the American International School for two years.

Returning to the states, he proposed to Nancy. After they married, they worked as teachers in Copiah County and in Nashville. Their next move took them to New Orleans, where Terry studied at the Baptist Theological Seminary and Nancy taught English at Saint Lawrence the Martyr School. Terry also served as pastor of a small Baptist mission church in the Ninth Ward.

Their interest in the development of young people is reflected in Nancy’s being named Mentor Teacher of the Year for Catholic Students and training students from Notre Dame University and Mississippi College as teacher assistants. Their interest included housing an exchange student from Germany for a year.

“She was a very smart young lady who speaks seven languages and now works at the European Union,” Nancy said.

Nancy’s career includes teaching English in Jackson Schools and at St. Joseph High School, then teaching twelfth grade English mythology at Clinton High School for nineteen years.
Connections abound from Nancy’s having taught some 6,000 students during her career.

After teaching biology at Clinton High School and serving as adjunct professor at Belhaven University, Terry was anatomy and physiology freshman lab professor at Mississippi College. Ten years later, he moved to the Office of Student Success, where he formed the Kokoa Men’s Service Club.

In addition to his teaching and in line with his musical interest, Terry has been active with the Barber Shop Quartet of Jackson and with the Mississippi Magnolia Chapter of SPEBSQSA (Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America). Members of Morrison Heights Baptist Church, he is in the choir and plays the piano, and she plays the saxophone.

Terry continues to enjoy connecting through his writing and his work at Chick-fil-A.

Their son, Sam, who was born in 1993, attended the University of Southern Mississippi, where he earned the doctorate degree in mathematics. He has the music connection like his parents. Playing tuba with the Mississippi Lions Club Band, he was considered one of the top six players in the tuba world.

Nancy, who retired from Clinton High School May 24, will continue her connections as she teaches tenth-grade English at Saint Joseph High School.

In days past, the family honored young Sam’s love of biscuits, going out to eat for breakfast. It’s a tradition they continue today.

“We have done the morning biscuit/family time since Sam was six,” explains Nancy. “First at Hardees, then at Burger King, and, finally, CFA, since the day it opened. We eat breakfast six days a week there, and they even gave Terry a retirement party last year!”