When Fran Alexander retired to Durham, she brought with her more than a decade worth of know-how in the tricky business of coaxing high school dropouts - some of them gang members, drug dealers or both - back into the classroom.

She also brought an abundance of time, and a deep-seated aversion to leisure.

"I was bored out of my mind," Alexander said of her first months in Durham, where she moved from California seven years ago.

She took a job selling furniture briefly and was a pretty good saleswoman. But she soon channeled her considerable energy into a mission she'd been turning over in her mind since she first heard about Durham's high dropout rate: selling some of those dropouts on the idea of college, and helping them get there.

To accomplish that goal, she invented EDGE Training and Placement, a program that in just four years on a shoestring budget has helped more than 125 teens from Durham's roughest neighborhoods earn a GED equivalent. About 30 are currently in college.

"We have students who never dreamed in a million years they would have a diploma, much less a college degree," said Alexander, citing as an example a teenage mother of two now attending Durham Technical Community College. "And now they're in college."

As director of EDGE (Education, Development, Growth, Employment), Alexander pours untold hours into pulling together grants and donations, hiring teachers, and serving as the main point of contact for all of her students. It's a full-time job with less than part-time pay; last year, Alexander earned less than $15,000 for her efforts.

The program, which is free to students, is rooted in her intensely personal approach to keeping students on track: She teaches them at their own pace, showering them with praise and counteracting the lack of money, cars, even food, that can stand in the way of their success.

Her commitment to their success is unwavering.

"She's a great person, and she has a great vision that she wants to see manifested," EDGE teacher Christal Toodle said. "She works hard to make that happen."

Getting them in school

Nothing in Alexander's early life would have predicted such a role for her. She was born near the Texas border in Shreveport, La., where her father was an engineer and city councilman. No one in her small circle had ever dropped out of school or felt the sting of poverty.

Once she finished high school, she studied psychology briefly, and then earned her teaching credentials at the University of California, Los Angeles. She stayed in Los Angeles to work at one of the public school district's adult education schools, where students who had left the regular public schools could earn their GEDs and find help with job training and placement.

She earned a teaching award early on for her work with the often difficult students at the Maxine Waters Employment Preparation Center, a school located in Watts, one of the city's poorest neighborhoods.

But she spent most of her 15 years with the school district as a recruiter, heading out into gritty LA neighborhoods to find students for the adult schools, and then tracking their progress from admission to employment.

"We would print up fliers and go to the places where they bought shoes," she says with a sly smile. "We'd ask the people at the stores to put the fliers in every bag."

Over many years working with troubled youths, she's boiled down their dilemmas to a simple choice, which she regularly poses to her EDGE students: a future on the street, which means drugs, death or prison; or college, which means money, cars and houses.

"The streets will pull you in," she says. "But when you get into something with your buddies, and something goes down, and you're in front of the judge, you're on your own. I tell them, 'You need to think about your own best interests.' "

Helping in many ways

A slim and energetic 71-year-old, Alexander gives the impression of constant movement even when seated at her desk in EDGE's headquarters in the basement of an old school in East Durham.

She chews gum as she fields texts and calls, hails a parent in the lobby to inquire about a sick student, and shuffles through index cards with ideas on improving instruction.

She regularly ferries students to Durham Technical Community College for the GED tests, which can entail several trips a day, and sometimes shuttles them to and from their homes and school. She stocks the school with breakfast and snacks with her own money.

"They're hungry," she says simply, by way of explanation.

Explaining 'Miss Fran'

The classrooms at EDGE are mostly silent, ensuring that easily distracted students can concentrate. Students attend classes five days a week, three hours a day, alternating between one room for math and science, another for language arts and history. On Fridays, they learn about college and careers, often from guest speakers or field trips that Alexander arranges.

Many EDGE students are referred to the program through the court system and have been suspended or expelled from their high schools, landing them in a state of idleness that makes the lifestyle Alexander summarily calls "the streets" even more tempting.

They bring with them gang affiliations, drug addictions and troubled home lives, all of which they are counseled to leave at the door. Toodle, the EDGE teacher, calls the program a "place of comfort" where members of rival gangs can sit in the same classroom without incident day after day.

"Everyone's here for the same reason, to get an education, to improve their lives," Toodle said.

Alexander is keenly aware that any misplaced piece of paperwork or missed bus has the potential to derail her students' tenuous steps in the right direction. She recalls, for example, shelling out $15 to send test scores to N.C. Central University for a student who didn't request them earlier.

"Some people would say that's not my responsibility," she said, "and no, it's not. But if I don't do it, it's not going to get done, and do I want him to lose that opportunity?"

These extra efforts are noticed by her students, who adore the woman they call "Miss Fran," even if some are a bit mystified by her motives.

"She puts in the time when she doesn't have to do this," says Eric Prince, who was expelled from high school. Alexander brags that his scores have improved two grade levels in only a few months at EDGE. "I can't explain Miss Fran."

Fellow EDGE student Kymesha Brown, 19, hazards a guess: "I think she does it because she loves it, and she feels like everybody deserves to have a dream and a better life."