SHERMAN, TEXAS - The fifth Grayson County Martin Luther King, Jr., Day Community Celebration Breakfast will be held at 7:30 a.m., Monday, Jan.
19, in Mabee Hall of the Robert J. and Mary Wright Campus Center at Austin College. Grayson County Rotary groups and Austin College co-sponsor the event. Members of the community may attend at a cost of $10 per person, payable at the door.
Keynote speaker for the event is the Reverend Robert Softly, associate minister at Sherman's Friendly Church of God in Christ and a Sherman City Council member. Softly has served 13 years as president of the Sherman Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance and on numerous city and school committees in Grayson County, including Sherman Chamber of Commerce, Sherman Planning and Zoning Board, Texoma Valley Boy Scouts, Texoma Council of Governments Executive Committee, Grayson County College Advisory Committee, and Sherman Rotary. He joined the Sherman community in1977, serving in the U.S. Air Force at Perrin Field. He retired from the Air Force after 20 years and also retired from Sherman's Proctor and Gamble plant with 19 years of service. Robert and his wife, Josephine, have three children and seven grandchildren.
Oscar Page, president of Austin College, will welcome attendees before the Pledge of Allegiance, led by Mike Waterman, president of Grayson Rotary. Charles Leslie, pastor of Community Baptist Church, will provide the invocation. Kelsel Thompson, dean of student life at Austin College, will introduce the student speaker, Austin College sophomore Brandon Stevenson-Mathews of North Richland Hills, Texas, a Spanish and international relations double major. At Austin College, he has been very involved, including service as a member of Student Assembly, Student Development Board, Los Amigos, Young Democrats, Model United Nations, and Zeta Chi Beta fraternity. A Dean's List student, he worked on political campaigns for Barack Obama in Atlanta, Hillary Clinton in Las Vegas, and John Edwards in Mason City, Iowa, He plans to study abroad in Argentina and Spain next year
The Sherman Federated Choir, directed by Louis Mason, will provide music for the morning. Priscilla Mask is choir president. Following the music, Joe Fallon, Jr., president of Sherman Rotary, will introduce the keynote speaker. Erik Jackson, president of the Grayson County NAACP, will report on the recipient of the chapter's Martin Luther King, Jr., Scholarship. Cash gifts will be accepted to benefit scholarships.
Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of the Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Founded in 1849, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original charter and name, the college is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recognized nationally for academic excellence in the areas of international education, pre-professional training, and leadership studies, Austin College is one of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope's influential book "Colleges that Change Lives."