Ada — When June Fair Harris Robinson started writing her first book, memories of a long-ago Valentine’s Day came to mind.

The Stonewall native was in the second grade, and she didn’t have any Valentines for her classmates. She came from a family of eight children, and her parents could barely afford food and shelter, let alone extras like Valentines.

When Valentine’s Day arrived, Robinson’s mother told the 7-year-old girl to tell her teacher that the family would not be buying Valentines that year. As the girl walked to school, she tried to figure out how she would break the news to her teacher.

When Robinson arrived at school, she walked into the classroom and gathered the courage to talk to her teacher. But the teacher had a surprise for Robinson.

“I remember her words, and she said, ‘Honey, don’t you worry at all,’” Robinson said. “And she took me to this huge green cabinet in the back and pulled out all kinds of Valentines for me, and she said, ‘You sit here at this table and you write out each Valentine, and we’ll go ahead and do this. And when you’re done, you can come and join us.’”

Several decades later, that incident was still fresh in Robinson’s mind. The memory inspired her first book, Varsity Dreams, about a high school student who dreams of playing basketball but can’t afford to buy basketball shoes.

Following a dream

Robinson started writing Varsity Dreams in the 1990s, when her first husband was still alive. She stopped because she doubted that she could finish the book, and she didn’t pick it up again for several years.

Then a friend encouraged Robinson to start writing again after her husband died, and she decided to take her friend’s advice.

“He sent me a laptop through the mail,” she said. “And when he sent the laptop, I sat there and I looked at it and thought, ‘You know, I’ve got to get this done.’ So I just started writing, and I really just put everything in it and I was really, really enjoying it.”

Robinson finished Varsity Dreams in late 2009, and the Utah-based company American Book Publishing agreed to publish her manuscript.

Set in southeast Oklahoma, “Varsity Dreams” tells the story of Jimmy Jenkins, a teenager who dreams of becoming a high school basketball star. He needs only one thing: the perfect pair of sneakers.

Jimmy’s family can’t afford to buy him new shoes, so he Jimmy tries praying for the sneakers and saves some money from his summer job. But he is no closer to reaching his goal, and he suffers another setback when he sacrifices his savings to help his family in a crisis.

Robinson said she wants her readers to know that if they nurture their dreams, they will reach their goal.

“When a dream takes residence in your heart, if you nurture it enough and you have someone who really believes in you, that dream can be catapulted into where you can actually become and be whatever it is that you desire to be,” she said.



Coming home

Earlier this month, Robinson visited Stonewall Elementary School to speak with third- and fourth-grade students about her book. During her visit, she shared her story of growing up in a poor family and using education to overcome poverty.

“I just wanted kids to know that no matter where you come from, no matter what you have to work with,  you do the very best with what you have,” she said. “No matter who you are, you’re capable of becoming and doing whatever you set your heart to.”

Robinson said after she left the school, third-grade teacher Faye Christian told her that a student had written a story and shared it with Christian. At the end of the story, the student told Christian, “I can be anything that I set my mind to be.”

“So that really, truly was a blessing for me,” Robinson said.



EDITOR’S NOTE: For more information about “Varsity Dreams,” go to www.pdbookstore.com.