Central/Eastern to host two guest speakers during reunion
By Staff Reports
Published in News on May 19, 2013 1:50 AM
The Central-Eastern Wayne Alumni & Friends association will observe its 41st annual reunion Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Classes whose numerals end in 3 and 8 will be honored.
A banquet will be held Friday at 7 p.m. at the Best Grove MB Church with guest speaker Priscilla Robinson Best, a retired teacher with the Wayne County Schools system.
She is the daughter of the late Rosell and Luevonia Robinson of Wayne County and graduated from Central High School in 1963, and continued her education at North Carolina Central University. Upon graduation in 1967, Ms. Best began her career as teacher and school librarian in Johnston and Wayne Counties. In 1985, she earned a master's degree in library science from East Carolina University. After serving in public education for more than thirty years, she retired in 2001.
Her career as a professional storyteller provides her the opportunity to travel, using the art of storytelling as a premium tool of communication and understanding.
"When people and stories come together, the fusion brings on excitement and wonderment that can be life changing" she says.
Best was awarded the Regional Artist Project Grant funded by the North Carolina Arts Council and the Arts Council of Wayne County in 2010.
Next on the agenda will be a dutch breakfast Saturday at 9 a.m. at Murray's restaurant on New Hope Road. A parade will follow, starting at noon in the Central Heights community. Lineup will begin at 11 a.m. at Eastern Wayne Middle School.
The annual family picnic will be held at Eastern Wayne Middle School at 1 p.m. Dinner will be served from 2-3 p.m. Tickets are $15. There will be vendors, games, music and food.
At 9 p.m., the homecoming ball will held at Murray's with music and dancing.
The classes will worship Sunday at Center of Love FWB Church on Sunday at 11 a.m. An awards program and concert in memory of Angelo Holman will be held at Best Grove MB Church at 5 p.m., where 2013 scholarship recipients and retirees will be recognized.
Guest speaker will be Ebony Bowden Cogdell of Baltimore, Md., formerly of Goldsboro. She is a disability recruitment manager for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Her father's service in the military allowed the family to live in a variety of places; however, she spent the majority of her upbringing in Goldsboro. She graduated with honors from Goldsboro High School in 2000 and went on to pursue her undergraduate degree in English and a minor in Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Soon after graduating cum laude from UNCC, she relocated to the Washington D.C. area and earned a master of arts in American studies from the University of Maryland.
After completing her master's degree Ms. Cogdell spent two years as diversity counselor at St. Johns College in Annapolis, Md. She later she served as coordinator of diversity programs at Coastal Carolina University. In May 2011, she was named to her current post with the federal government.