Something you might not know about Diana Atkins, ACC’s beloved SCSEP office assistant, is that she’s a world-class singer. In fact, her voice is classified as coloratura soprano—a rare distinction reserved for vocalists with expansive tonal range.
“I can sing all over the piano, up to the last High C,” she says via Zoom from her Sacramento home, where she is working remotely thanks to a SMUD Shine Award laptop she received from ACC. In other words: she’s the real deal.
Diana has been sharing her voice with lucky crowds ever since she was seven years old. At that time, she began accompanying her pastor father to street ministry sessions he gave in downtown Stockton, where Diana spent much of her childhood. Diana remembers standing in an outdoor marketplace atop an orange crate, shaking her tambourine and leading her father’s audience in song. Eventually, people started coming out just for her.
Diana’s music career took off from there. She moved to Los Angeles in 1958, and for a brief period in her early twenties was signed to Gordy Records, an early label from Motown founder Berry Gordy— until her father, the pastor, caught wind of a love song she recorded that had a little too much love in it.
Diana transitioned to gospel and is still singing to this day. She established herself as a vocalist for gospel pioneer James Cleveland and a member of the LA Community Choir. Due to her unique vocal gifts, Diana was frequently sought after by choirs, churches, and music schools around the nation, and has travelled as far as Hawaii and New York as a performer and teacher over the course of her career.
It’s a great story, the story of Diana the singer—ask her about it sometime, and she might tell you about it herself. But it’s not her whole story. While Diana has been busy singing over the last 60 years, she’s also been busy with everything else that comes over the course of a full life.
Diana has four children, four grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. (Football fans will recognize her grandson, Ahkello Witherspoon—a star cornerback for the San Francisco 49ers.) After moving from Los Angeles to Sacramento in 1981, she held longtime jobs as a medical transcriptionist and then as a social worker in the foster care system. Through the second job, Diana has also been a foster mother to twenty-two foster children, and she still keeps in contact with many of them.
On top of all this, Diana is a lifelong learner who has received three degrees—including a recent sociology degree from Cosumnes River College, at age 78. She wants to spread the word to other seniors: “You don’t have to get bored when you go to school, it’s fun, and nowadays you can do it online from the comfort of your home!”
Despite her many achievements, Diana hit in a rough patch in summer 2018. She had been out of work, and just when she found her new training assignment job—as a Rides office assistant through ACC SCSEP program — her daughter suddenly passed away.
Diana’s new coworkers told her she could delay her start date and take more time to rest, but Diana felt sure that being alone at home would make her depressed. So, she says, “I started to work the day after we had my daughter’s funeral service—and it brought me so much joy, oh my God.”
She goes on to describe the community she has found at ACC. The new friends she made helped support her through that dark time, she says, and have continued to bring light to her days ever since. “It was really good for me. Really—it saved my life.”
Besides making friends, what Diana appreciates most about working at ACC is being exposed to new cultures. She hadn’t met many Asian people before, and she says she’s now learning all kinds of stuff. “I’ve learned I can eat without ham hocks,” she says with a laugh. She’s also learned she likes tea, and yoga—but mostly she talks about “the delicious food” her coworkers make.
Working from home during COVID, Diana has continued learning new things. She’s been able to take virtual classes at the Urban League through SMUD, where she has gained skills in customer service and financial literacy. And recently, she started her new position as the SCSEP office assistant, helping other SCSEP participants complete their distance learning and job development forms and activities.
But of course, she misses the office (and especially the food). She’s got a bucket list of things she wants to do when she can return in person, including taking a tai chi class—another new thing her ACC co-workers have introduced to her.
“This has all been eye-opening for me,” she says of her time at ACC. “I’ll be glad when I go back in person.”
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