They are the favored sons and daughters, the natives who have gained national and — in some cases — international acclaim. They run the gambit from record producer to politician, baseball to the blues.
Rockingham’s own, The Dream, known to locals as Terius Nash, has rubbed shoulders with the likes of Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian and has earned his own acclaim from solo albums like “Love Hate” and “Love King.”
Wadesboro native Blind Boy Fuller took up music later in life. Moving from Anson County to Winston-Salem to work in the coal yards, Fuller started playing for the warehouse workers after losing his sight. Years later he became known as a creator of the distinctive Piedmont style of the Blues.
Rockingham’s Bucky Covington is well on his way to stardom after an eighth-place finish on American Idol. A graduate of Scotland High School, he painted cars in his families’ auto body shop prior to hitting the sound stage.
Broadway performer Ben Vereen called Laurinburg his home, while award-winning journalist and author Tom Wicker of Hamlet was one of the first to report Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas.
Across the Carolinas iconic figures can be found. Luther Vandross, Josh Turner, Randy Travis and Fantasia have made their names on stage and screen. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was born in Augusta, GA but raised in South Carolina.
Hamlet’s Perry Williams, Dannell Ellerbe and Oscar Sturgis dominated NFL playing fields. Laurinburg’s Franklin Stubbs excelled at America’s Pastime. All called this region home and many returned to impact lives of future stars, be it academics, entertainment or athletics.
All this led me to wonder: Who’s next and how are we, as a community, embracing their unique talents and opportunities?
Richmond Community College and our area high schools are doing their part with such programs as RCC for students whose academic prowess earned them an opportunity to two years of free college tuition and fees at RCC, an estimated $4,800 value. The RCC guarantee provides two years of free college tuition and fees to Richmond and Scotland county students who take at least two dual-enrollment courses through the Career and College Promise program and graduate from high school with an unweighted grade point average of 3.0 or above (now changed to a 2.8 GPA by the state legislature).
Athletic, art and academic extra-curricular programs offered by schools throughout the region are doing their part by not only seeking educational and athletic excellence but demanding enhanced citizenry from the participants.
Parks and recreation departments, Boys and Girl Clubs, civic organizations and hundreds of volunteers through literacy programs are doing their part in striving to make certain our young people are capable of not only surviving but excelling once they reach adulthood.
Gerard Morrison seems to be doing his part with such local offerings as the John Coltrane Music Edu-tainment Festival Saturday in Hamlet.
Morrison, a graduate of North Carolina A&T and the former Director of Special Alliances with Lt. Governor candidate Hampton Delinger, is hosting the event that he says “connects education and entertainment” to bridge cultural and generational understanding in these economically challenged areas.
Morrison, like so many we mentioned above, emotes passion to make a community stronger and the desire to bring people together in an era where so many of our leaders are concentrating on tearing them apart.
It’s my guess the talents of Coltrane, Williams, Ellerbe, Vereen and so many others would agree that were it not for someone, at some time, supporting their dreams to rise above and be a better version of themselves, they would not have made it where they did.
As I make my way through these Sandhill communities, meeting people of passion who call this region home, I have faith there will be more Coltranes and Fullers, more Ellerbes and Stubbs. And as the publisher of three newspapers, I can’t wait to write about them.
