Steve Ruby works to share his late wife’s passion for literacy education – Jagwire

Steve Ruby was working in the bookstore at the Augusta-Richmond County Public Library when he met Paulette Harris, PhD, in 2015.

“I started working there in February,” said Ruby, who recently moved to Augusta from Florida to be closer to his daughter after the death of his wife of 37 years.

“Paulette came in June and we just started talking,” Ruby recalls. “She had lost her husband; I had lost my wife and we used that as a way to get together and chat.”

The couple met for coffee a few times and then Harris invited Ruby to join them on a Patriot Riverboat Tour.

To his great surprise, Ruby soon discovered that Harris would be piloting the boat, and not just any boat, but a big boat – about 50 feet long and comfortably seating about 60 passengers.

An older man in a tuxedo and a woman in a toga stand next to each other. An older man in a tuxedo and a woman in a toga stand next to each other.
Paulette Harris, PhD, and Steve Ruby.

“Paulette, whether you knew it or not, had a captain’s license to run a big boat,” Steve explained with a smile. “She always wanted to get to the top, so she joined the U.S. Power Squadron, took all the tests, and became a captain. So she sailed the boat up and down the Savannah River.”

Ruby and Harris married just six months later, in December 2015.

“It was a whirlwind courtship,” Ruby said.

Becoming so closely connected to Harris, a distinguished professor of education at Augusta University, Ruby couldn’t help but become interested in the Augusta University Literacy Center, where Harris, its founder in 1990, spent much of her time. It had been her life’s passion for more than three decades, and knowing Harris meant knowing and appreciating the literacy center. Ruby soon began volunteering and tutoring there.

“You could see the difference you were making in someone’s life,” he said. “People might have been a little nervous when they first came, but as they came more, you could see they got more into it and wanted to learn more and do more. It was very refreshing to see.”

He also found satisfaction in seeing students who were not doing well in school, doing better because of the help they received at the reading center. Ruby said it was great to see and see how much they appreciated what was happening.

“It was a remarkable thing that Paulette did,” Ruby said. “I’m not sure people took it as seriously as they should have, but the people involved loved her. The parents and others thought she did a great thing.”

Ruby remembers all the compliments Harris received from teachers describing how well their students were doing after they began tutoring at the reading center. He also got to know the families who passed on their love of the reading center to their children and grandchildren.

“We had a few people who were third generation who came to the reading center,” Ruby noted. “Grandmothers who brought their grandchildren because they had been there, they brought their own children and grandchildren — they loved it.”

Harris loved it too.

“She put so much of her life into it – she started from scratch and grew the oak tree, and despite all the complications, she always came out on top,” Ruby said proudly. “She always kept it moving and growing. She put a lot of her life and time and everything into it, and it did a lot of good for a lot of people.”

Thanks to a generous gift from Ruby, Harris’ life and legacy will live on in the Dr. Paulette P. Harris Literacy Center, located in the HUB for Community Innovation Augusta, as it now forever bears her name.

An elderly man stands in front of a photo of his deceased wife.An elderly man stands in front of a photo of his deceased wife.
Steve Ruby at the name change ceremony of the
Dr. Paulette P. Harris Literacy Center.
(Michael Holahan/Augusta University)

During her 42-year tenure at AU, Harris served in a variety of roles: faculty member, director of clinical and field experiences, chair, credentialing officer, and interim dean of what was then the College of Education. Her notable contributions extended to holding the esteemed Cree-Walker Professor of Education Chair for more than two decades. When she passed away in 2021, she held the distinction of being the longest-serving tenured faculty member in the University System of Georgia.

During that time, Harris also transformed a small facility on Magnolia Drive, just off the Forest Hills Campus, into what would become the Augusta University Literacy Center. As the program’s founder and director, Harris began helping adults who struggled with literacy by giving them a place to go and the resources they needed to learn to read. She soon began teaching children as well, and her efforts impacted thousands of people during her 31-year run of the literacy center.

Although Harris never saw the completed literacy center at the HUB for Community Innovation, she was part of the team that went on the hunt for the new location. Because of her tenacity and passion to grow the literacy center from the ground up, it continues to help countless people of all ages in the Augusta area.

For information about how you can make a lasting impact at the Dr. Paulette P. Harris Literacy Center, email Philanthropy & Alumni Engagement or call 706-721-4001.

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