Kudos to athletes; tip of hat to Pepin's

Tampa columnist HOOPER E-mail: Click here Archive

© St. Petersburg Times
published May 31, 2002

The room was decorated with green, gold and white balloons. It was filled with the sounds of hip-hop, the smell of Spanish chicken and the smiles of eight Chamberlain High graduates as they mingled with well-wishers.

Six of the grads were members of Chamberlain's state finalist football team this year. Two were in the basketball team.

Jared Baxley, Brian Clark, Sam Culberth, Kahlil Daley, Oliver Hoyte, Eddie Ivery Jr., Orin Jackson and Otis White Jr. marched across the stage at the USF Sun Dome on Wednesday to get their diplomas. And then the eight friends marched into the Latam Restaurant at Centro Asturiano for a celebration.

Their mothers thought there could be no better salute to their achievements than a party. They are, the mothers say, boys of excellence becoming men of integrity.

Each of the students is off to college in the fall; Baxley is going to the Air Force Academy.

But it wasn't just a party. There was a roast, a dedication, prayer and Will Daniels, a guest speaker.

"We went back and forth on this party," says Charlene Clark. "They wanted to have a party where they could invite all of their friends. But we told them, as parents, we had something we wanted to say to them. Other kids were having "party' parties. But we had a speaker who was really directing a message."

There also was a tribute to a ninth graduate. Two years ago, Kevin Hayes was killed outside a Tampa nightclub by a bullet not intended for him. Kevin's father accepted his diploma Wednesday.

One of the banners hanging in the room had a promise for Kevin from his former football teammates: "We'll meet in heaven."

This week's sign that I'm getting old: Eunice Kindred, who was first featured in these pages when she was a 13-year-old bowling phenom, budding artist and musician in Brandon, is graduating from Harvard. She's 22.

What happened to the time?

Silly me. I had driven by Pepin Academy on Hillsborough Avenue a couple of times, but I thought it was a training facility for Pepin Distributors. You know, Barley and Hops 101, or Basics of Longneck Bottling.

Pepin Academy is actually the state's only charter middle and high school for the learning disabled, and after three years is about to hold its first graduation. The late Art Pepin, the city's longtime Anheuser-Busch distributor, was on the founding board of the academy.

The teaching techniques used at Pepin have received national recognition. Robert H. Pasternack, President Bush's assistant secretary for special education, spent a day at the school last month.

Pepin's enrollment has gone from 32 its first year to an anticipated 175 next August. The students have met the same requirements as the rest of the county's students.

"All of our kids have had to struggle to get to this point," said principal JoAnn Shaw. "It's been a difficult road."

While many high school seniors are walking across the stage this week, a group of teens is performing on it. On the Brink presents a series of comedic and dramatic sketches tonight and at 8 Saturday in the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center's Shimberg Theater. Admission is $5 at the door and proceeds go to charity.

On the Brink grew from the Hillsborough High IB program in the 1990s, and it now includes students from four area high schools.

Charlene Clark, one of the eight Chamberlain High moms, said the parents would stay together to support one another while their sons are in college. They may set up a newsletter to update everyone on the kids.

You could say there is pressure on the elite eight to fill that newsletter with good deeds, and pressure on them to keep being role models.

But pressure isn't always a bad thing.

That's all I'm saying.

-- Ernest Hooper can be reached at 226-3406 or Hooper@sptimes.com.

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