Wife, Mother of 6 Children, And Now Valedictorian at Kingsborough Community
by Beth C. Aplin (beth@brooklyneagle.net), published online 06-18-2007

Bed-Stuy’s Helianne Duke Is At the Top of the Class of ’07By Beth C. AplinBrooklyn Daily EagleBROOKLYN — Sleep is just one of the many things Helianne Duke, 34, sacrificed when she went back to school.
A wife and mother of six children, Duke averaged five hours of shut-eye a night while juggling a full course load at Kingsborough Community College.
“We have one computer, and everyone needs to use it,” said Duke, who waited until her two middle-schoolers had finished their homework and were in bed before beginning her own. “I usually got started about 12 at night,” she recalled.
All that midnight oil was behind her though, this past Friday, when the Dean’s List student received her diploma in education studies as well as the honor of Class of 2007 valedictorian.
Duke’s impressive résumé matches her 4.0 grade point average. A member of the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society, Duke attended the prestigious Salzburg Seminar’s Global Citizenship program in Salzburg, Austria, and served as an intern in Sen. Hillary Clinton’s New York City office. (She says that in person, Clinton is “not as fierce as she is on TV. She’s more soft-spoken, more personal.”) In addition to many academic and student leadership awards, Duke won a scholarship to continue her studies at New York University’s Steinhardt School of Education.
At age 16, she came to Brooklyn from Charlotteville, a small tourist and fishing village in Tobago. A family emergency prompted the Bedford-Stuyvesant resident to get her degree. “My husband had a spinal surgery, and it wasn’t successful,” she said. “I had to do something to help. I had to go back to school to get an education to maintain a family of our size.”
Her husband, Clive, is now permanently disabled and stays at home. Their six children range in age from three to 13. Duke could barely afford the Metrocard needed to get to school everyday. How did she do it all?
“I had a lot of encouragement and support from my three families,” she said. “My husband and children, my church family, and my friends.”
She also credited a fourth family — the faculty and staff at Kingsborough — for assisting her with everything from obtaining a Metrocard to filling out paperwork to arranging childcare. “They really helped me, even the president [Dr. Regina Peruggi]. She is so interested in what students do and how to help them go further.”
Originally, Duke hoped to attend Brooklyn College because it was closer to home. “Kingsborough wasn’t my first choice, but now I realize it was my best choice,” she said.
This summer, Duke will intern with a head teacher as part of the Department of Education’s Summer in the City program. In the future, she hopes to work with the childhood development program Head Start, and she wants to open her own day care center.
Her future education plans, however, are currently on hold. Though she received a $20,000 scholarship to attend NYU, the annual tuition is $34,000. “Given my financial situation, it’s going to be very hard for me,” she said. “I really want to go. I am waiting to see if I can get more scholarships.” For the time being, she and her family are celebrating how far she has come. When asked if he was proud of his wife, Clive Duke replied, “That would be an understatement. I am very, very, very proud of her. She’s done abundantly more than anyone expected.”