Voorhees College Founder's Day Convocation

Denmark, S.C. - This morning, April 11, 2013, the 116th Annual Founder's Day Convocation was held in a commemorative effort to show appreciation for the hard work that was put into the founding of Voorhees College and also the work being put in daily.

Held in the Leonard E. Dawson Health and Human Resources Center, it was an all college assembly which the 8th President of Voorhees College Dr .Cleveland L. Sellers, Jr., was a momentous event. Beginning with the marching in of the faculty and staff dubbed in their graduation gowns and stoles. Reverend Dr. James Yarsiah, Voorhees' Chaplain/Vicor, followed with the invocation for the ceremony. Darius Snow, SGA President came next with his greetings to the college's faculty, staff, and students as a whole and after a selection from the Voorhees College choir, President Sellers gave the introduction of the speaker.

The speaker of this year's convocation was the honorable LaDoris G. Harris, Director of the Office of Economic Impact and Diversity at the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington D.C. Harris spoke of how important it is to value and education. She stated her success in order to explain that through her value of education and her hard work she was able to do things that not only her counter parts have not done but things that she didn't even see for herself. With her being appointed to her position by President Barack O'Bama, she is the first women to be put in the position that she is in and the first woman to blaze the path that she took. She expressed that fact that students should not just simply attend college but find the purpose of they are in college and do everything in there power to achieve the most out the opportunity.

Following the program was the walk to Mrs. Elizabeth Evelyn Wright's grave sight. Mrs. Wright was a black woman in her early twenties who, in spite of betrayals, arson, jealousies, threats of violence, and weariness from wandering, preserved and founded Voorhees College. The faculty, staff, and students walked together to decorate her grave sight with roses in honor of her hard work. Faced with the battle of carrying out her dream, she endured many obstacles. For this 116 years later is is still remembered and gloried for her committment.

This year's Voorhees College Convocation was a memorable one. And it was only right to have such a prominent and successful female figure come to speak to the students in honor of the founding of Voorhees College seeing as though a successful female founded the college. As a another academic year draws closer to an end, it only goes to show that something that was once a twinkle in someone's eye turned out to be a everlasting flame. Mrs. Elizabeth Evelyn Wright's dream still lives on.