Breakfast honors King

Staff photo: Kevin Wilson

Featured speaker Pamelya Herndon addresses the crowd at the 24th annual Clovis Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Scholarship Breakfast Saturday morning at the Clovis High School cafeteria. Herndon is the executive director of the Southwest Women’s Law Center in Albuquerque.

With a backdrop of children displaying their musical and writing talents, a message of using your talents for the betterment of society echoed Saturday in honor of Martin Luther King Jr.

The Clovis High School cafeteria played host much of the morning to the 24th annual Clovis Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Scholarship Breakfast.

The event, which drew more than 650 people, is the main leadup to the 9 a.m. Monday symbolic walk and rally to commemorate King’s 1965 Alabama march from Selma to Montgomery, starting at O.G. Potter Park and ending at Bethlehem Baptist Church.

Event emcee Kim Grooms surveyed the crowd and boasted of a crowd of different backgrounds, cultures, ages and life experiences, all gathered together in King’s vision.

“There was a time not so long ago when we would not, could not, have had this,” Grooms said. “But oh what a man, one named Martin Luther King Jr., had an impact.”

Featured speaker Pamelya Herndon, executive director of the Southwest Women’s Law Center, spoke of an upbringing in Corpus Christi, Texas, and how King’s message helped her on a path that took her to the University of Texas and eventually Albuquerque.

“I remember telling myself the day he was assassinated that I was going to take up the fight for Dr. King,” Herndon said. “I would take up the fight that Dr. King could not finish. Even though I was only in elementary school at the time, I said I was going to law school and I was going to argue the core principles for the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments.”

link Staff photo: Kevin Wilson

Parkview Elementary students, led by Zahra Bilal, perform “Wayfaring Stranger,” with Eliana Coronado on vocals during the 24th annual Clovis Martin Luther King Jr. Commission Scholarship Breakfast Saturday morning at the Clovis High School cafeteria.

King, Herndon said, found his calling, but noted that everybody can do their best no matter what position life creates.

“You may be a street sweeper, but you will be the best street sweeper you can be,” Herndon said. “You will sweep streets like Michelangelo painted. You will sweep streets like Handel and Bach wrote music. You will sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry.”

Herndon said that while she worked for women’s rights, she joked that men shouldn’t feel left out because, “we talk about you, and we think about ways you can make our lives better.”

The speech winners included:

• Yasmin Adams, elementary school winner: “Our lives begin to end when we stop fighting for the things that matter. I wouldn’t have my family, my friends or my dignity without this man.”

• Aaliyah Thom, middle school winner: “What I like about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was he wasn’t afraid to do what was right. I couldn’t imagine a world of discrimination and segregation and thanks to Martin, I don’t have to live in a world like that.”

• Hannah Ayre, high school winner: “He saw a world we couldn’t imagine, a world without discrimination. He saw a school where people of all races attended, and people of all races taught.”

The morning also included musical selections from Parkview Elementary, Clovis High’s Chris Phillips and singer Kenneth Chretien and speeches from various local students, who spoke in a room decorated with posters and art pieces celebrating King.

Clovis Schools and Clovis Christian Schools superintendents Jody Balch and Ladona Clayton had a friendly competition to boost student participation in the event. Balch said he wasn’t concerned with whether students won or lost, but if they learned something through participation, while Clayton said everybody has talents and gifts from God along with the responsibility to put them to good use.

Honoring MLK

• Symbolic Walk and Rally, 9 a.m. Monday at Potter’s Park in Clovis. Marchers will proceed east on Grand Avenue to Bethlehem Baptist Church, 104 Calhoun, where guest speaker is Rev. Delmus Gillis. Information: 575-762-2752

• Celebration at Eastern New Mexico University, 5 p.m. Monday at the Portales Memorial Building, 200 E. Seventh St. Marchers will walk to Buchanan Hall on campus for a musical performance by Roberto Garza, followed by questions and answers with Portales public school officials who will talk about vocational initiatives. Information: 575-562-4251