Last night, my father was posthumously inducted into the Charles H. Darden High School Alumni Association Hall of Fame. The honor was, perhaps, late for him, but right on time for us, coming almost exactly four years after his passing.

Everything about the evening filled my heart:

• My sister and I and our families, as well as my aunt and cousins, lifting up my teary-eyed mother.
• The gathering of my father’s 1978 and 1982 basketball state champion players (and surrogate sons), Buck Williams, Reggie Barrett, Oie Osterkamp, and George McClain, as well as his Rocky Mount coaching colleague Stan Bastian.

• Seeing my father’s old friend and college teammate, Dr. William A. Birchette III, who was also an honoree, for the first time in maybe 50 years.
• Hugging the necks of some of my father’s oldest friends, including Doris Ward Heath, L. Paul Sherrod, Ruby J. Jenkins, and Barbara Farmer, and other folks who make up my extended Wilson village of kin and friends, including Rev. H. Maurice Barnes, Dr. Michael Barnes, Renee Tabron Barnes, Tyree Barnes White, David Speight and family, Derrick Creech, Judy Bland, Linda Harris Barnes (who beautifully presented my father’s induction), Harry B. Harris, Gwendolyn Murrain, and Carolyn Barnes Kent.
• Legendary 96 year-old Samuel Lathan serenading 99 year-old honoree Henrietta Hines McIntosh with his signature “Wonderful World.” When his voice cracked, he growled, “Find me, Bill,” and 93 year-old William Myers laid his fingers on the keyboard to do what he does best.
• Andre Winstead shouting out Black Wide-Awake, quipping that folks were learning things their parents never told them. “We don’t want to know your secrets,” he said. “We just want to know what you did.
• Flipping though the program booklet to read the many congratulatory ads placed by people who loved my family and my father, ads whose fees fund scholarships for local students.
• Listening to Dr. Kendral R. Knight, the decorated nephrologist whom I last saw when he was about five years old, bring laughter and light with his keynote speech,

“On behalf of our mother, Beverly Henderson, my father’s beloved wife of 61 years, I’d first like to thank all our family and friends here tonight and all those who supported my father’s nomination to the Darden Alumni Hall of Fame through letters of support, prayers, and encouragement. We also congratulate tonight’s other honorees.

“My sister and I were born too late to attend Darden, but we grew up in the glow of its glory and were indelibly stamped by its legacy. Our father was a member of the Class of 1952. In the trunk of his car, he kept a stack of papers listing every known graduate of Darden from 1924 through 1970 for anybody he ran into that might have wanted one. Our aunt and uncles were Trojans, our friends’ parents were Trojans, our neighbors were Trojans. We were young children when the Alumni Association was founded and spent many a happy Memorial Day running around Toisnot Park at the reunion picnic.

“Our father loved Darden. He was a smart boy from a disadvantaged home, whose teachers recognized and encouraged his innate leadership qualities. Educators like Charles Branford and John Wesley Jones were his mentors and later lifelong friends.

“Our father’s bio outlines the arc of his career and details the accomplishments that perhaps were of highest consideration for those tasked with selecting this year’s hall of fame inductees. He certainly was justly proud of these achievements. But our father’s guiding principle was to give others the same chance he’d been given as a boy walking the halls of Darden High School. To pour into young people the wisdom and guidance that builds character and self-esteem. To help anyone he could, whether a former student down on their luck or an ailing Trojan needing groceries or just a listening ear.

“I’m in touch with some of my high school classmates, but those relationships do not touch those forged in Darden High School’s class of 1952. Jean Wynn Jones lovingly spoke on the class’ behalf at his funeral, and several of his classmates helped carry flowers from the church. Two weeks later, his class celebrated its 70th anniversary, and they continued to lift us up as we learned to navigate the world without him. Our father’s induction into the Alumni Hall of Fame is as thrilling to them as it is to us.

“Thank you to the C.H. Darden Alumni Association for this great honor and recognition of one your most steadfast sons. We wish so much that he were here to receive it, but we gratefully accept on his behalf.”