Sea Island Life Magazine Spring/Summer 2014 | Page 72

vision has been carried on by others in the
industry, including PSOW’s current president
and owner, Pamela Eyring, Haygood, Wall and
even Johnson’s granddaughter, actress Liv
Tyler, who recently co-authored a book with
her grandmother titled “Modern Manners:
Tools to Take You to the Top.”
The lessons Johnson and her predecessors
at PSOW teach remain invaluable and timeless. “When I was beginning my family [in
the mid-1980s], there was no one in Athens
(Ga.) who was teaching etiquette,” Haygood
explains. She and a friend subsequently
attended PSOW to earn their credentials.
“When Dorothea retired in 2005, she needed
to sell off portions of her business to people
she had trained. We acquired the children’s
division and renamed it the Etiquette &
Leadership Institute.”
Haygood has been interested in the subject since her childhood. “My parents’ families were huge, and there was a particular
pattern about all of those [family] events,”
she says. “I love to observe behavior. I love

Top: Basic table manners are imperative to any dining experience, from formal to casual affairs.
Bottom right: Etiquette & Leadership Institute training courses teach table manners. Bottom left:
Handwritten thank you notes remain a sincere way to express gratitude.

Jennifer Wall, who teaches a children’s etiquette course at Sea Island, shares a similar
background. “I’m the oldest of four and the
oldest grandchild on both sides,” says Wall, who
recalls learning how to do things like set the
table for family holiday meals at H[