The Beryl Henry Elementary School Parent-Teacher Organization sponsored a Black History Month program Feb. 28, featuring students and teachers looking “Past, Present and Future” in black history.
\r\nPTO President Inell Thornton introduced the program for the evening, and acted as emcee for the variety program which was opened by Mrs. K. Artis in a rendition an a cappella version of “Lift Every Voice,” the historic Black National Anthem.\r\n
\r\nMs. Thornton offered an overview of Black History Month as the successor to observances of black history that begin in 1915 with the founding of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, now known as the Association for the Study of African American Life and History. In 1926, the group chose the second week in February as a national Negro History Week, coinciding with the birthdates of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. The celebration was officially recognized as Black History Month by President Gerald Ford in 1976, and has been observed as such since by each succeeding administration.\r\n
\r\nBHE teacher Bennie Lard gave a stirring recital of the poem “You Are a King” and student A. Williamson gave a short speech on the life of Sarah Rector, the first black millionaire at age 12. Rector, a child of African descendants of the Creek Indian Nation was born in Oklahoma in what was then Indian Territory. As a result of the organization of the Oklahoma Territory to qualify it for statehood, such children were allotted 160 acres of land each. Rector’s parcel near Glenpool, Oklahoma, was worthless as farm land, but later became the center of the famous Cushing-Drumright Oil Field. Rector was a millionaire by the time she was 18, and owned stocks, bonds, a boarding house, a bakery, a restaurant and 2,000 acres of prime farmland. She died in Kansas City, Mo., at age 65 in 1967, having lost the majority of her wealth during the Great Depression.\r\n
\r\nStudents played a “Match Game” of black history icons, and the BHE Choir rendered two African-related songs under the direction of Sandra Jones. A. Williamson and Mrs. Gloria Jones were presented gift cards as winners of the Fashion Walk.\r\n
\r\nStudents Tyrenda Hale, James Artis and TyAsia Young performed a humorous skit on black fashion, “Hair We Go Again,” and Mrs. Betty Robertson gave a soaring musical performance.\r\n
\r\nBHE Principal Dr. Roy Turner concluded the evening with a recitation of the poem “Man in the Mirror,” and the BHE PTO served a light buffet afterward.\r\n
