Verna Webb graduated from Herrin High School in 1977, and she'll tell you she didn't have a lot of say in what came next.

Her mother narrowed it down to two options: nurse or teacher. Verna considered them both. She didn't like blood. That eliminated nursing rather quickly.

So she became a teacher.

It was probably the right call — though what her mother was actually training her for had already been underway since Verna was fourteen, cleaning shifts and worst-of-the-week schedules at the nursing homes her mother ran for individuals with developmental disabilities and older adults.

"It was the best training," Verna said. But she knew she didn't want to do it the way it was done then. The large institutional settings never felt right to her. She loved the people — she simply didn't love the system.

After John A. Logan College, she earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees at SIU, then went looking for a teaching job. She applied at Herrin. They weren't interested.

"I finally get to say that," she said with a laugh.

She moved near Evansville, then near St. Louis, spent one year at Johnson City, and built most of her teaching career at Carterville, where she taught special education. She earned a master's in school administration, served as a special ed supervisor, and worked as an assistant principal.

Then, in 1994, a lawsuit changed things.

A man with cerebral palsy had sued the State of Illinois — not for money, but because he was living in a nursing home and never got out of bed. He wanted the right to live in a smaller home and go see the world. He knew group homes existed in other states. He won. The lawsuit opened the door to what Illinois called CILAs — Community Integrated Living Arrangements. Group homes, everywhere else.

Verna's family saw it coming. Her mother had run the nursing homes; all seven of her siblings eventually got into the group home business. Southern Illinois providers call them the Southern Illinois Mafia — about fifty facilities among family members across the region.

Verna was still teaching when she started attending state meetings, curious. The more she saw, the more she thought: this is how it should have been. She, her ex-husband, and her sister began pursuing licenses.

Their first project was in Johnson City. They had everything ready, residents with suitcases in hand — and found the water shut off. The mayor turned out to be their neighbor. They went to federal court. Four years. They won.

"We found out everybody didn't love us," she said.

By 2000, she had enough years in teaching for retirement and insurance. She left education and went full-time into disability services.

What was supposed to be a five-person workshop has grown to about a hundred people served across five counties, operating out of five buildings in the Herrin area.

One of those buildings is a resale shop. The clients figured out that it was the best-paying work they could get. Verna named it Honey's — after her mother Helen, who called everybody "honey." All clients get free clothes there. Her mother, who never let the family have yard sales because everything had to be donated to the nursing home residents, would have found that entirely appropriate.

The organization is called Our Directions. The name "New Directions" was already taken. They chose "Our" because the direction belongs to the clients. "Whatever they choose to do is what they do."

About ten years ago, a nurse who worked there asked what it would take to own one of these. Verna told her to spend a couple of years learning first. She did. Her husband quit his factory job in Mount Vernon and came on too. Now they pretty much run the show.

"I call myself the head gardener now," Verna said. She mentors, she teaches — the part she's always loved — and she steps back from the business operations. "I just get to do all the fun stuff."

She has no biological children but five grandchildren through her husband. "I thought that was a pretty sweet deal."

When asked what she's learned from the people she serves, Verna doesn't hesitate.

"They're the happiest people in the world. The most loving. The least judgmental. I've learned not to know my age. I've learned not to worry. I've learned to just smile if you don't know the answer."

When people tell her bless your heart, how do you do that work? — She corrects them.

"It's the most wonderful job you could ever have in the whole wide world."

She means it. She's been at it for over thirty years.