(ict the latest tacts on infant mortality and alcohol use. See page C3
SportsWeek
kKAs hold annual
golf tournament
••••
Basketball camp
Caches art of game
Community
WSSU students
stage day of fun
•••
See >12
See C7
First Waughtown
celebrates 100
cents
Winston-Salem Greensboro High Point
Vol.XXVI No. 39
12:. 0b 2 201 . : * K * * r. v 3
OHi?fUlv -1 iX :'
CS #39.58 DAVIS LIBRARY
UiNi^ onAr'.Ciij H-lj-iaj
CRABCxi-t ^ o890
Chronicle
The Choice for African American News
THURSDAY, MAY II, 2
Boy walks out of local school unnoticed
BY CHERIS HODGES
THE CHRONICLE
'all and
mother
Randall
Photo by Cheris Hodges
Kristy Hairston color at their home,
pulled them out of Petree Elementary
left the school undetected.
When Robin Wilborn dropped her two children
off at Petree Elementary School last Tuesday, she did
n’t think anything would happen to either child.
But she got a startling shock when she went to
pick her children up and found the police combing the
neighborhood for her son, Randall.
“Randall was missing for 15 minutes before any
one noticed,” she said.
And, Wilborn added, to make matters worse,
when she arrived at the school no one was in the office
to tell her what was going on.
Wilborn said she found the person who was sup
posed to be watching the office in the school’s gym.
When she asked the woman about her son, Wilborn
said the woman laughed at her.
Wilborn said she asked the woman if she had any
children and how would she feel in this situation. The
woman apologized and said she only laughed because
she was so shocked that Randall was missing.
She said that she was frightened when she found
out her son had walked away from the school on Old
“I do not allow my children
to walk across the street by
themselves. ”
■ -Robin Wilborn
Greensboro Road. Wilborn said that street has a lot of
speeding cars and illegal activity.
“I do not allow my children to walk across the
street by themselves,” she said angrily.
Randall had walked nearly a mile and a half to get
to his grandmother’s house near the school. The boy
was found unharmed. But Wilborn wanted to know
why her son was allowed to walk out of the front door
of the school in the first place.
According to Petree principal Denny Rutledge,
Randall was misbehaving in his music class. The
teacher (whom the school would not name) called the
office and told the principal that she was going to
send Randall to the office.
The teacher did not walk the little boy to the
office, as the school policy says. Rutledge said he and
the assistant principal had students in their offices and
could not meet Randall in the hall.
“This type of thing happens two or three times a
year at a lot of schools in the system,” he said. “Peo
ple make mistakes.”
But Wilborn feels as if this is a mistake that could
See Missing on A10
Community unites
)baccoville residents take nostalgic
ilk during weekend-long celebration
KEVIN WALKER
:hronicle
he black men and women who toiled in
relds of Tobaccoville during slavery
t have much, material wise, to pass on
eir children and grandchildren.
'' Tiat they did pass down, according to
idolyn “Jeanette” Norwood-Williams,
ded “roots and wings.”
orwood-Williams said the descendants
lose who built the tiny community,
ed in northwest Forsyth County, have
'' their roots to keep them grounded and
constant source of pride and connec-
. She said they have used their wings to
to heights that their ancestors couldn’t
imagined.
We have become ministers, educators,
preneurs, realtors....,” Norwood-
ams boasted.
onnecting the past and present was
one of the main objectives behind last
weekend’s Tobaccoville Reunion. Nor
wood-Williams was behind the weekend-
long event, which brought together people
with ties to Tobaccoville.
Several years ago, she envisioned a cele
bration of the community’s people and cul
ture after learning that other small enclaves
have had success with staging similar
reunions. Norwood-Williams and the steer
ing committee for the event sent out more
than 300 invitations to people with Tobac
coville ties.
The reunion festivities, which included a
gala banquet at the Ramada Inn Saturday
night, drew people from as far away as Cal
ifornia.
The banquet brought out several hun
dred people. Many of them still call Tobac
coville home today. Others have since left
County jail
inmates
earn GEDs
BY CHERIS HODGES
THE CHRONICLE
See Tobaccoville on A10
Photo by Kevin Walker
Ninety-year-old Eva Payne addresses the crowd at a banquet Satur
day for the Tobaccoville Reunion. Payne and other elders of the com
munity helped construct a video timeline for Tobaccoville.
ostonians share experiences with locals
LECIAR MCMILLAN
flJNITY CORRESPONDENT
■ he Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, pastor of Bethel AME
ch in Boston, Mass., physician, and chairman. Ten
Coalition, shared the successful crime reduction
I gjes from the Boston Church Cluster Model with a
je group of more than 50 community leaders,
ling clergy, on Tuesday night at Emmanuel Baptist
di. .
tpm 1991 to 1998, Boston saw more than a 70 per-
fecrease in juvenile and gun violence. This reduction
ne is attributed to the collaboration of the Ten Point
tion working along with probation officers, police
rs, service providers and street workers in Boston.
Ihey have done phenomenal work,” said Loretta
land Biggs, executive assistant U.S. attorney. In
October 1999, the U.S. attorney’s office sponsored a trip
to Boston to observe this model. We were so energized by
that visit that we wanted to bring some of the people we
met there here. It was Rev. Hammond that our clergy
asked us to bring down.”
Several staff persons from the U. S. attorney’s office
went on this mission. Biggs was joined by U. S. Attorney
Walter C. Holton; SACSI project coordinator Sylvia
Oberle; and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Lang.
In that trip they took members from Winston-Salem
and High Point who are involved in violence reduction
strategies, including chiefs of police Louis Quias from
High Point and Linda Davis from Winston-Salem; the
head of Juvenile Services, Walter Byrd; clergy from Win
ston-Salem and High Point, Rev. John Mendez, Rev.
William Fails and Rev. Ellerbe; the city manager from
High Point, Strib Boyton; and a variety of others. The
purpose of this trip was to see first-hand how Boston had
used successful strategies to stop juvenile violence.
Mendez, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church and a
leader in the SACSI Clergy Coalition, explained the pur
pose of Tuesday night’s meeting. “We are a very diverse
group from different locations in the country, especially
the northeast part, but we have a common interest, a
common sense .of destiny,” said Mendez. “We are all
moving in the same direction, trying to build a communi
ty that represents the best of all of us. We are pleased to
have your different perspectives around the table....
“I feel good about the SACSI Initiative because we
have our hands on real situations, real people, and we see
that we can make a difference. We have continued in a
path that has led us all around the table.”
According to records at the Forsyth County
Detention Center, inmates who complete their GED
while incarcerated are less likely to return to jail or
end up in prison.
So when several inmates at the detention center
earned their GED, their teachers from Forsyth Tech
nical Community College took their celebration
behind bars.
“It inspires them not to come back,” said Officer
Brenda Manley, the manager of the partnership with
FTCC. “When they are released, they can get back
into the community.”
Manley said Forsyth County Sheriff Ron Barker
and Maj. Wayne James, director of the jail, are very
supportive of the program.
FTCC provides the classroom books and the
instructors for the classes. According to Ronnie
Valenti, coordinator of the project, the inmates are
offered classes in African American history, English
as a second language and many others. She said the
school plans to apply for a grant so that they can get
video college classes to the inmates at the detention
center.
Currently, inmates cannot take college courses
until they are transferred to a state corrections facil
ity.
“A lot of our GED graduates go on to take col
lege classes,” Valenti said.
Inmate Thomas Flanagan was presented with his
GED.
Valenti said the classes offer more than just edu
cation to the inmates. The classes help to build their
self-esteem and self-respect.
“I have people say to me all the time, ‘If my teach
ers in high school cared the way you guys do, I might
not be here today,”’ she said.
Valenti added that these classes give many
See Bostonians on All
See Jail on All
K/^FU has first graduation for minorities
T. KEVIN WALKER
a CHRONICLE
In an event filled with laughter
11 tears, the young men and women
lo will make history at Wake Forest
diversity’s upcoming commence-
!nt, celebrated years of struggles
achievements in less than two
urs.
t Wake Forest’s Office of Multicul-
al Affairs held its first Multicul-
al Graduation ceremony last week
the university’s campus. Next
jek, 93 minority undergraduate
idents will receive their degrees at
school’s graduation ceremony,
d a record for Wake Forest, which is
but 88 percent white.
I Last week’s send-off was in part
fcelebrate that record, but more
* portant, said the director of Mul-
nltural Affairs, it was a way to
bring the school’s minority popula
tion together for an evening of
“reflection” and “encouragement.”
“There is no kind of ceremony
that allows the ethnic minority popu
lation to have a special celebration,”
said Barbee Oakes. “It was a way for
them to have that special bonding.”
Underclassmen and members of
the university’s faculty and staff were
also on hand to cheer on the gradu
ates.
Oakes provided words of encour
agement to''seniors. She challenged
them to embrace new challenges and
dream new dreams. She said the class
was filled with talent, energy and a
slew of success stories.
“I see writers, doctors, dentists,
lawyers....You name it we have it in
this class,” she said.
It’s a class that Oakes admits she
shares a special bond with. It’s the
first class she recruited after taking
over the reigns at the Office of Multi
cultural Affairs. The office is no
longer responsible for recruiting
minority students.
Some of the students and Oakes
go back to the students’ senior year
of high school.
“When I accepted the position as
director of Multicultural Affairs five
years ago, my greatest challenge was
to see both an increase in the number
of minority students enrolled at the
university and to see an improvement
in the academic performance of
those students,” Oakes said.
The Class of 2000 made both of
Oakes’ dreams a reality. The class has
the highest five-year graduation rate,
78 percent, of any minority class in
the history of the university; and
Wake Forest’s total undergraduate
population includes a record 470
minority students, 12 percent of the
entire undergraduate population.
Oakes juxtaposed those figures
with the ones from 1976, when she
was a freshman at Wake Forest. Then
the school had just 130 minorities on
its campus. And worst of all, Oakes
said, only about half them graduated
within a five-year period.
The ceremony paid special atten
tion to the diversity of the school’s
multicultural makeup. Entertainment
for the event was provided by an
Indian student who danced in shim
mering traditional Indian attire. One
of the few Asian staffers of the cam
pus thumbed a guitar and and sang
the words to a poem she penned for
the occasion, and an African Ameri-
See Graduation on A10
Photo by Kevin Walker
Vaishali Patel performs an Indian dance last week at
the first annual Multicultural Graduation and Awards
Ceremony at Wake Forest University.
5 Kir
□
FOR SUBSCRIPTIONS CALL (336) 722-8624 • MASTSRCARD, VISA AND AMERICAN EXPRESS ACCEPTED •