Diane Fuller Cotton, a longtime Franklin educator and volunteer with the Friends of the Library and Read2Me, worked tirelessly for the community before her passing last week.
Cotton passed away Monday, April 6, at age 68. She was born Dec. 1, 1957, in Swisher, Texas. She met her late husband, Jack Cotton, at Southwestern Union College before the two married in the late 1970s and later relocated to Franklin in 2000.
Cotton worked for more than 40 years in education, including serving as an Exceptional Children teacher for Macon County Schools and as principal of Union Academy (now Bartram) from 2013 to 2023.
Brian Moffitt, who succeeded Cotton as principal of Bartram, said he had the opportunity to serve as an interim principal for Cotton a couple times, first during the COVID-19 pandemic when she was sick and again in January 2023 when her husband Jack passed away.
“That following fall I took over,” Moffitt said. “Diane had a huge heart. She was what we called – we called each other – fierce advocates for students at risk … she was firm and she was fair and everyone respected her for that. She might have said some things that students didn’t like to hear, didn’t want to hear, but it was always fair, and she was extremely well-respected by her peers.”
Moffitt said Cotton kept order at the school in a stressful position and environment, and he believes he inherited a completely different institution than the one Cotton entered. She had worked hard to help some difficult students through tough situations in her time at the school. Moffitt said Cotton was a great cook and always worked to make sure kids could get their requested meal on their birthdays, making favorite desserts like German chocolate cake to pineapple upside down cake to savory meals like biscuits and gravy.
“She poured her heart into that place,” he said. “She would be there early and she would leave late and she would always be there for her kids … she believed in people and had high expectations and wanted students and the teachers that served under her to meet those expectations.”
“She wanted it to be a true alternative education, the students that were there needed to learn in a different way,” Moffitt said. “She was an incredible friend and mentor who was there for me no matter what.”
Chris Baldwin worked with Cotton both as a principal at Nantahala School and as superintendent when she started at Union Academy. He said Cotton’s desire to work with the students at Union was the primary reason she was selected for the job.
“She really had a strong desire to work with those students who might have special needs and who were struggling,” Baldwin said. “She obviously had a strong background with special needs students and anytime you have a person who has such a strong will and desire to work in an alternative setting … that’s something that really plays into the decision making.”
“She was obviously a special administrator,” he continued. “She genuinely cared deeply for her students and they responded to her authenticity and were successful because of that relationship that she built.”
Baldwin said she stayed on through renovations and cultural changes at the academy, changing both the physical structure and making the environment more welcoming to make “students be more safe and secure.”
“She really had a huge impact on the entire school itself,” he said. “The main thing I remember about Diane was her outgoing nature and her desire to build positive relationships. When you walked through the building with Diane she was always speaking to students and calling them by name and being specific about their day to day lives, asking them about their parents, asking them about special projects they might be working on, asking them about hobbies.”
Cotton helped establish Read2Me as a nonprofit in 2014 and served as president for several years. She began volunteering with the Friends of the Library shortly after her 2023 retirement.
Carol Waldroop, another longtime Read2Me member, said Cotton was involved with the organization at the very least since its 2014 incorporation as a nonprofit, perhaps since the very beginnings of the group in the early 2010s. She said Cotton’s leadership experience and expertise in literacy were essential to the organization.
“We decided we really need to encourage reading at home before kids come to school, and so we started collecting gently used books from community members and businesses and we got to redistribute them at community events,” Waldroop said.
When Read2Me incorporated, the group was able to add Highlands as a service area and become the distributors of books from the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, and continues to do so. Cotton’s expertise allowed her to select the ideal books and make good recommendations for children based on their reading levels.
Waldroop said, “She still had lots of connections with people in the school system through working at several different schools over time and she’d had a lot of people that she knew, and she would usually do a lot of the planning for our events … she really kept us moving forward with things for the kids in Macon County.”
“She was determined that no matter what age she was around, she wanted them to learn to read and just like she worked with Read2Me … she helped kids of all ages and teachers in every school to help teach them techniques on how to teach kids how to read,” Waldroop continued. “It didn’t matter what age children were, she was going to try to help them learn to read and help them be successful in life.”
Sally Dyar and Henrietta Haithcock worked with Cotton as part of Friends of the Library.
Dyar said Cotton was an organizer responsible for some of the story walks for children scattered around Macon County parks and was working on the story walk still in development at the Macon County Public Library even after others gave up on the project.
“She was persistent, cared about literacy and wanted to use those skills for the well-being of the library,” Dyar said. “She really loved and cared about children … we lost somebody who really cared.”
Haithcock said Cotton served as a hospitality director for the Friends of the Library, acting as “a shining jewel of our program” and organizing, catering and volunteering at countless events both through the Friends and at Read2Me. She said Cotton could always be seen at events like Winter Wonderland wheeling around a wagon full of children’s books to give to children to make sure they had the opportunity to read.
She recalled the Friends’ “Books and Bites” program in October when Cotton provided “the most magnificent and creative desserts. It was really something what she could create.”
Waldroop and Haithcock said Read2Me will honor Cotton’s memory by seeing through the Carnival of the Animals event at Macon County Public Library Cotton was instrumental in organizing, set to begin on Saturday, April 18, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. with music and instruments, animals to visit, stories and dances and free books for families.
Cotton had four children — Jesse Cotton, Hope McClure, Benjamin Cotton and Anthony Zari — and 10 grandchildren.
“She’s just an amazing woman. She’s loved and missed. There’s a big mommy-shaped hole in all our hearts,” said Rachel Cotton, who is married to Jesse Cotton.
Zari posted on Facebook, “We lost the most caring, loving, and amazing woman to walk this earth. She loved her family, friends and students more than anyone could understand. I was able to see her as a friend, colleague, most of all, as a mother (the one I chose). I was blessed to be accepted into the Cotton family and I will always be proud of that. I want to thank everyone that has reached out and offered help and prayers. If you know my kids, you know how much they loved her and how much she did for them … The family and I have had many questions from people in the community that loved her about a service for Diane. She never wanted anyone to ‘make a fuss’ for her and always said not to. We have decided that ‘a fuss’ is needed to show the love and support this community has for her and her family.”
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, April 25, at 2 p.m. at South Macon Elementary School.