Elizabeth City State University Foundation officials are rolling out the red carpet March 9 to recognize two state senators and four alumni selected for the 2024 Chancellor’s Legacy Awards to be presented during the annual Founder’s Day Scholarship Gala.
The award “recognizes individuals, businesses, corporations, and foundations who have best demonstrated the standard of excellence that defines and shapes ECSU as an institution,” according to the university.
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Doors open at 6 p.m. for the event and the program begins at 7 p.m. at the K.E. White Graduate Center in Elizabeth City. Tickets are $150 each and can be purchased online.
Sen. Warren Daniel, R-Burke, and Sen. Gladys Robinson, D-Gulliford, are among the recipients and alumni, Phyllis Elmore, Lenora Jarvis-Mackey, Gwendolyn Sanders and James E. Swimpson.
Elmore, a 1982 graduate, is an avid supporter and has organized several trips from the Washington, D.C., and Maryland areas introduce students to the university.
Jarvis-Mackey, class of 1966, has been the president and chief executive officer of River City Community Development Corp. since it was founded more than 30 years ago.
Sanders, who graduated in 1977, serves as the president of the Elizabeth City Chapter of The Links Inc. and parliamentarian of the Elizabeth City Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. She retired from ECSU in 2023 as the deputy chief of staff in the Office of the Chancellor.
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James Swimpson, a 1962 graduate who was accepted to the university called Elizabeth City State Teachers College, had a 30-year career in the financial aid office. He was recognized with a historic marker Oct. 13, 2022, as the only surviving member of the original five student activists that in 1960 sat at a whites-only lunch counter in Elizabeth City.
The gala, which the university foundation calls it’s “premiere fundraiser,” has raised $1.6 million to support the General Scholarship Fund since it began in 2003.
