From Manatee Junior College to Air Force Squadron Commander: Alum to receive statewide “Life Achievement Award”

Tessa Suplee hated her public speaking class at Manatee Junior College. The year was 1978, and Suplee just wanted to be a nurse. She didn’t understand why the school required her to deliver nervewracking speeches in front of a whole class.

“I was mortified,” Suplee said. “I’m like, ‘Why does a nurse have to take speech?’ ”

Decades later, when Suplee was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force and generals depended on her for clear and accurate briefings, she would think back to that loathed speech class at Manatee Junior College, now called the State College of Florida. She said that class, along with the nursing courses that set her on the path to eventually become a flight nurse, altered the trajectory of her life.

“If it hadn’t been for that school, where would I be? Zilch,” Suplee said. “I love that school.”

The feeling is mutual.

Suplee was selected as this year’s Life Achievement Award recipient by the Association of Florida Colleges. The annual award goes to a state or community college graduate who has had a significant impact at a state or national level. Suplee, who lives in Sarasota, will be honored at the 2017 LeRoy Collins Distinguished Alumni Awards on Nov. 2 in Palm Harbor.

Both her list of accomplishments and her appreciation for the school have grown since she attended the junior college, going from a nursing school student to a flight nurse serving tours in Desert Storm and in Afghanistan, to a Lieutenant Colonel and squadron commander.

Suplee described herself as a “late bloomer” and said she sees herself in students at SCF who are still figuring out who or what they want to be. The college primarily offers associates degrees and targets students who wouldn’t typically start out at a four-year university.

“I envied those people who knew what they wanted to do. I had a cousin who knew she wanted to be a nurse from the get-go,” Suplee said. “I didn’t know what I wanted to be. I didn’t think I was smart enough.”

After graduating from Manatee Junior College, Suplee worked as a nurse in the emergency room at Sarasota Memorial Hospital. As a single mother of three children, she would pick up additional shifts to earn more money. But a recruiting letter from the Navy in the late ‘80s grabbed her attention. They wanted nurses. At the time Suplee was 42.

“They said, ‘No ma’am, you are too old,’ ” Suplee said. “So then I called the Army because (I thought), ‘Don’t tell me what I can’t do.’ ”

She said the Army told her they didn’t have women in helicopters, and Suplee wanted to be a flight nurse. But the Air Force welcomed her with a First Lieutenant rank. Her first training was at MacDill Air Force Base in August 1990. In December, she was deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Storm.

Over the course of her military career, Suplee rose through the ranks. When she retired earlier this year at age 68. she was the oldest person working in uniform on a base. She looks back to her time at the junior college as being foundational to her success.

“Not only did I get educated in nursing but also in handling doctors and in work politics,” Suplee said. “This school made me strong ... I was driven and I was pushed.”

SCF President Carol Probstfeld said she loves to hear stories like Suplee’s.

“To hear her credit her self confidence and discipline to lessons she learned at SCF makes us proud,” Probstfeld said. “It is gratifying to see that she is passing on the lessons she learned here to other nurses, military personnel and young women in our community.”

This story was originally published August 19, 2017 at 1:23 PM with the headline "From Manatee Junior College to Air Force Squadron Commander: Alum to receive statewide “Life Achievement Award”."