Star profile: Toi Bowie

"Parent involvement," as Toi Bowie will readily confirm, is a huge factor in determining a school's success. In support of that principle, Bowie is the newest member of Aiken County Area Two's advisory council.

The Pittsburgh native earns a living as the environmental safety specialist for SCE&G's Urquhart facility in Beech Island and is now also engaged in helping encourage a better "environment" in local schools.

She and her husband, Patrick Bowie, have a keen interest in the topic, as the parents of 6-year-old Lindsay, a first-grader at Mossy Creek Elementary School.

"Both my parents did it for me," she said, recalling the importance of having parents who take an active interest in the children's education. "It wasn't unusual to see one of my parents in school and not just for good or bad."

Among other roles, Bowie is treasurer of Mossy Creek's PTO - a job for which she is "extremely capable and thorough," in the words of Gwyn Snider, the PTO's president.

"She pays attention to the details that are required of her position," Snider added. "She's not afraid to ask for help or explanations, and I've been around for a while, but this is her first year in this capacity, so I'm always very glad to help her and answer whatever questions that she's got ...

"She wants the best for our school and our PTO. She's a busy woman, working full-time and then taking all this on and all the little extra stuff that's involved with the treasurer's position."

Bowie, in her role on the seven-member advisory council, will attend meetings at local schools several times each year. Council members hear about problems and progress, with a focus on making recommendations to the Aiken County Board of Education.

Meetings also address disciplinary questions, in an effort to find the best ways to deal with kids who have run afoul of schools' rules and regulations.

Bowie's academic background is in chemical engineering. She graduated from Tuskegee University and moved on to work for the Department of Health and Environmental Control, in Columbia. The next step was a job in consulting, and the road led to Aiken County by way of a job at the Bridgestone/Firestone facility, in Graniteville, in 2000.

She also offered some insight on her work, a few yards from the Savannah River, where three steam turbines are on duty to generate electricity.

"I do all of the environmental work there, on site, as far as dealing with regulatory agencies, reporting, auditing ... just making sure we stay in compliance."

Bowie's husband has his work site within a couple of miles of the SCE&G facility, working at Kimberly-Clark, as a machine operator helping with diaper production.

The family's roles also reach west of the Savannah River, where the mother of the house is active in the women's missionary society of Bethel AME Church in Augusta.

In addition, Bowie got an in-depth introduction to the ins and outs of North Augusta about a year ago, as a member of the 2011 class of Leadership North Augusta. Her LNA classmates included Chris Chavous, James Dean, Karen Denny, Fletcher Dickert, Alphia Dunbar, Michael Ford, Danny Geddes, Kris Harwood, David Noyce, Walker Posey, Josh Rhoden, Chad Shaver, Rebecca Sylvester and Karl Waldhauer.

"I just wanted to get to know some of the folks in the community - wanted to know more about North Augusta," she recalled. "I'd heard a lot about Aiken and their history but just didn't know much about North Augusta."