Page 2 - Florida Sentinel 4-23-19

Feature
‘Miss Middleton 1965,’ Phan Opeyi Boston, Chairs Scholarship Ball
BY FRED HEARNS When Phan Opeyi
Boston was crowned Miss George S. Middleton High School at the Tigers’ home- coming football game played at Phillips Field in the fall of 1964, she entered a new chapter in her life. The recog- nition by her alma mater set the teenager on a path of service to MHS that she still follows today.
Boston is chairperson of the Miss Middleton, Home- coming Kings and Queens Scholarship Ball Weekend, Friday and Saturday, April 26-27, 2019. Luvator Henry Nelson (Class of 1966) is president of the alumni association.
All alumni weekend activ- ities will be held at the Mar- riott Hotel Westshore, 1001
N. Westshore Blvd. The Ma- roon and Gold Pool Party (casual) is Friday, April 26th and the Scholarship Ball (formal) is Saturday, April 27th, both starting at 6 p. m.
Several ladies who have worn the crown of “Miss Middle- ton” will participate in a promenade into the banquet room to open the gala for some 230 well-wishers. Miss
Middleton 2019-2020 Cateira Marshall will join them at the ball.
Middleton opened in 1934 as the first facility con- structed as a senior high school for African American students in Hillsborough County. In 1971 the school was converted to an 8th and 9th grade center and later be- came a middle school.
Middleton graduates Ken Anthony and Debra Smalls organized a group of alumni that held the first All- Class Reunion in 1991 to cel- ebrate the 20th anniversary of the closing of Middleton’s doors to high school stu- dents. Some 500 alumni at- tended.
Later that year, Fred Hearns was elected presi- dent of the school’s new offi- cial alumni association, along with 17 charter mem- bers. Other founding alumni association directors were Nelson, Artie Fryer, Margaret O’Neal and reg- istered agent, the late Atty. Frank Stewart. It was the beginning of an 11-year “im- possible dream” to reopen the high school.
In 1996, Alumni Associa- tion President Hearns met with former Hillsborough County School Superintend- ent, Dr. Raymond O. Shelton. He requested that the school district examine the possibility of reestablish- ing Middleton as a senior high school. Hearns’ argu- ment was based largely on the fact that East Tampa (with the city’s largest seg- ment of Black residents) had by then gone 25 years with- out a high school: some 1,000 Black students there were bussed to eleven differ- ent schools (dividing the community), from Brandon to Leto High Schools.
Shelton responded to the alumni association’s re- quest in a March 11, 1996 let- ter to Hearns that said in part, “at this time there are no plans to change the status
of Middleton as a magnet middle school for science and technology ... as long as the school district remains under Federal Court supervi- sion for school desegrega- tion, the likelihood of changing Middleton’s desig- nation to a high school is highly unlikely.” Dr. Shelton’s letter continued, “Commencing discussions on this matter, however, is a positive step that can be pur- sued. We need to keep an open mind (about building a new Middleton High School) and not raise expectations knowing that they may not be achievable in a short pe- riod of time” (Hearns, 2006).
But then, two major breakthroughs occurred. Later in 1996, voters who wanted to build a new sta- dium for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers approved a half- cent Community Investment Tax. And around the same time Judge Elizabeth Ko- vachevich made a favorable federal court ruling on de- segregation of Hillsborough County Public Schools that opened the door for willing school board members and the superintendent to in- clude, “Middleton High School” (the only school on the list identified by name) on the proposal for new con- struction. School Board Chair (and Middleton alum) Doris Ross Reddick’s ag- gressive leadership resulted in her fellow board members supporting the vote to re- build the school.
And in August 2002, Principal and 1968 Middle- ton High School Graduate, Henry (Shake) Washing- ton, School Board Members Candy Olsen, Dr. Jack Lamb, Administrator Hu- bert Brantley, Dr. Earl Lennard and Class of 1966 Graduate Hearns cut the ribbon to the new Middleton High School, a $40 million site built on 50 acres. God is real!
Miss Middleton 1965
PHAN OPEYI BOSTON CATERIA MARSHALL
Miss Middleton 2019-2020
PAGE 2 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2019