Two Raider graduates honored with HBCU scholarships

ROCKINGHAM — Two distinguished soon-to-be Raider graduates have been acknowledged with scholarships to North Carolina HBCUs Tuesday morning.

Bruce Stanback, President of the Nationwide Alumni Affiliation for Livingstone Faculty, introduced Cnedra Hinson with the Livingstone Presidential Scholarship.

“We’re proud to current this younger girl with the Livingstone Presidential Scholarship, which suggests she gained’t have any bills throughout her time that she’s at Livingstone,” Stanback stated to a refrain of amens. “Welcome to the Blue Bear household.”

The inaugural Latronda Shanta Brilliant Scholarship Basis award, created by Ron Davis and his firm Residing Roomzz, was given to Joydan Kinds, who can be attending North Carolina A&T in Greensboro.

Davis first met Latronda, a ‘98 RSHS graduate, in 2001 whereas they have been college students at UNCG.

“We simply clicked and began learning collectively,” Davis stated, including that they might typically meet at 5:oo within the morning. “I used to be making an attempt to assist her together with her research. She was the toughest working younger girl I ever met. She was a star.”

Sadly, Latronda handed away in an accident in Candor whereas returning house in 2002.

Davis stated he spoke at her funeral and pledged that he needed to do one thing for his shut buddy and the neighborhood that raised her. It was a pledge that went unfulfilled — till right this moment.

“21 years later, in the course of the night time, I awakened and began crying, serious about Latronda at about 3:oo within the morning,” Davis stated. “I couldn’t cease serious about Latronda, and needed to do one thing, and I made a decision that the easiest way to do it will be to proceed what she couldn’t end, which was ending college.”

Davis contacted numerous church buildings and different sources, earlier than reaching RSHS assistant principal Alan Parker, who helped him observe down the household. Paradoxically, Parker was on the scene for this very accident.

“I keep in mind that day vividly,” Parker stated. “It was a Sunday.”

After numerous interviews with potential candidates, together with a GoFundMe marketing campaign, Joydan Kinds was chosen as the perfect candidate for the inaugural, $3,600 award, because of her cumulative GPA and robust extracurriculars. Davis stated it labored out that the candidate can be attending a faculty that’s near the place he lives in Greensboro.

“All of it type of labored out collectively in God’s plan,” Davis stated. “What woke me up in the course of night time and put Latronda in my head may solely be God.”

Davis thanked Parker and RSHS counselor Nikki Wells for his or her help all through all the course of.

“She was the sweetest niece you ever recognized,” stated Latronda’s aunt, Margaret Wilson. “She was at all times soft-spoken, lovely. She made us proud when she stated she was going to varsity. Whenever you’re from a household that has not gone to varsity, and he or she was, it made us proud.”

“I inform folks, ‘She wasn’t alleged to be mine,’ as a result of that’s the kind of particular person she was,” stated Latronda’s mom, Mary. “If she walked up on you and also you wasn’t smiling, she wasn’t leaving till you smiled.”

Mary stated she cried when she heard that Ron was beginning this scholarship.

“Actually, you assume folks neglect,” Mary stated. “I like him. He’s part of the household now, he simply doesn’t understand it.”

“In loving reminiscence of Latronda Shanta Brilliant, a candle that burned out method to early. Could this award assist construct your future and proceed her legacy by additional growing younger ladies of Hamlet, North Carolina,” reads the plaque introduced to Joydan.

The Latronda Shanta Brilliant Scholarship Basis award can be an annual award that can be included in future RSHS educational awards banquets.

Mary, awestruck, silently gazed on the plaque following the banquet — “Wow, wow. That is lovely.”