Edna Viola Goodman Sutton was born August 11, 1921 on a farm near Grenola, in southeast Kansas.
She attended College High School in Maryville, MO, a training school for Northwest Missouri Teachers College, now Northwest Missouri State University. Classes were taught by college seniors, and classes were held in the east wing of the College Administration Building, first floor.
She began her college courses September 1937, receiving a 2-year teaching certificate of 60 hours credit in May, 1939. Her graduating class had 49 graduates, the largest class up to that time. Her first teaching position, beginning August 1939, was Maple Grove School near Barnard, MO at a salary of $70.00 a month.
Returning to Northwest in 1944, and continuing to teach, she finished requirements for a major in Music education, and a minor in Social Studies in August 1945.
Edna Sutton had always said one of her joys was her time at Northwest, and had stipulated in her will a $5,000 scholarship for an eligible recipent.