The Charles H. Darden High School Alumni Association is gearing up for its homecoming alumni weekend May 26-28.
Celebrating “A Legacy of 52 Years … The Past, The Present, The Future,” members will honor the classes of 1943, 1948, 1953 and 1963.
The weekend will begin with the third annual Memorial Golf Tournament honoring Ervin Cogdell at 1 p.m. Friday, May 26. The tournament will be held at the Wedgewood Public Golf Course with registration beginning at 10 a.m.
General registration for the alumni weekend starts at 4 p.m. Friday, followed by the general membership meeting at 7 p.m. A meet-and-greet fish fry is planned from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
On Saturday, May 27, registration will continue from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. At 4 p.m., the group will recognize 2023 scholarship recipients during the annual awards banquet. One of the nine recipients will be the winner of the “Mr. Gus” D. Gliarmis Social Justice Memorial Scholarship sponsored by Gliarmis’ granddaughter, Dr. Jenna Maria Constantine of New York.
The salute to the graduates will be given by Saptosa Foster, a 1994 Darden scholarship recipient who graduated from Spelman College. She is the daughter of JoAnne Woodard, founder and CEO of the Sallie B. Howard School of Arts & Science, and Newsville Foster, a New York City writer and musician. Foster is chief communications officer at the Sallie B. Howard School.
The Charles H. Darden High School Alumni Association was founded in 1971 by a group of Trojans who wanted the old Darden High School’s legacy to be remembered after its closure following the 1970 academic year due to changes from integration of the public schools. The association was incorporated and set Memorial Day weekend as its “homecoming weekend.”
The organization’s primary goal is to provide scholarship opportunities for Wilson County public high school students graduating from Beddingfield, Fike and Hunt, the Wilson Early College Academy and the Wilson Academy of Applied Technology. Students must attend a four-year historically Black college or university. More than a half-million dollars in scholarships have been awarded.
Charles H. Darden High School Alumni Association, Inc. 