Momence plant managed by unlikely boss

MOMENCE - She's in a place she'd never imagine she'd be.

Yes, Donna Osteen is in charge of a workforce of 400 in a plant that produces $32 million in air filters each year.

She's the general manager of Flanders-Precisionaire of Illinois in Momence. But if you aren't impressed, consider where she came from: Osteen dropped out of high school at 16 after she conned, cheated and faked her way through almost 11 years of school.

"When they finally caught on to me, they said they were going to hold me back," Osteen said. "I said 'Oh no you're not."'

Today, the 54-year-old Florida native who lives in Lake Village, Indiana, reflects back on her youth and realizes she simply didn't care about school - an attitude that easily could have relegated to a low-paying job, if she was lucky to have one.

"I was in sixth grade. You know how you read aloud in class? The teacher called on me. I refused to do it. They thought I was stubborn. I was hiding. I learned to hide. I learned to hide things very well," she said. "Life would have been better if I had just admitted I couldn't do this."

She learned to use her hands. Always gifted mechanically, she poured herself into working on cars.

It didn't bother her parents. Her then-stepfather often told her she was nothing and she was always going to be nothing.

"I thought that way of myself. Education wasn't important to him, and it wasn't to me."

So why - almost 40 years after dropping out of school, almost 30 years after earning her GED, and 16 years after landing her first job with Flanders - is Osteen talking about her struggle?

"If one person reads this and it touches them and they say 'I can do that,' that would make this all worthwhile. If I can get someone to take school seriously," she said. "Without education, you have nothing. I can tell anyone who wants to know: Life is awful hard without it."

Osteen was finding that out the hard way. Jobs were difficult. Hours were long. Pay was low.

It was her wife, Tori Whitehurst, who is a quality supervisor at Flanders, who told her long ago she had to gain her education. Osteen, then age 19, agreed.

"I knew if given half a chance she would be successful," Whitehurst said. "Initially there was fear; the fear of failing, of making a fool of herself. She didn't have that self-assurance then."

Reading the old Dick and Jane books to children started the seven-year process that eventually led to her GED.

"She would read everything. When we were in the car, she would read signs, billboards. She would read the newspaper every day, front to back. I always knew she had the want to, the work ethic."

The couple's adopted daughter, Courtney Ayes, who still lives in Florida, said learning what her mother has overcome provides her inspiration.

"Seeing what she's done let's me know there's nothing I can't do. She's an inspiration, and I don't just mean for dropouts, but for people everywhere."