Larry Womble, a former longtime member of the N.C. House of Representatives, and State Sen. Earline Parmon will be honored on Saturday, Feb. 23 at Salem Lodge #139’s Black History Month Community Banquet & Robert A. Miller Scholarship Gala.
The theme of the banquet is “Paving the Way for Future Generations of Excellence.” Dr. William Barber, president of the N.C. NAACP, will be the keynote speaker. The event is a fundraiser for an endowment in the name of the late Robert A. Miller, a longtime community leader and one of the first African-American news reporters at the Winston-Salem Journal. Miller was a member of Salem Lodge.
“Brother Miller was an outstanding businessman with a long affiliation with Victory Credit Union and Prince Hall freemasonry who was always willing to dispense knowledge and wisdom to anyone that would ask,” said Richard L. Williams, the master of Salem Lodge. “He would be pleased and humbled to know that Salem Lodge is allowing his legacy to live on by providing scholarships to young people in Winston-Salem.”
Womble represented the 71st District from 1995-2012 in the N.C. House. He choose not to seek reelection last year so that he could concentrate on recovering from severe injuries he incurred in an automobile accident. Womble’s public service career began when he was elected to the Winston-Salem City Council in 1981.
In November, Parmon became Forsyth County’s first African American woman elected to the state Senate. She had been a member of the state House, where she represented the 72nd District for five terms. In addition to the Salem Lodge scholarship efforts, members give boxes of food each year to needy families in the community during the Thanksgiving holiday and host a Christmas celebration for the widows of departed Brothers. Salem Lodge is a subordinate lodge of the Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge of North Carolina.
The gala will be held at the Anderson Conference Center on the campus of Winston-Salem State University at 7 p.m.
To serve as a sponsor or to purchase tickets to the event, call 336-771-2600.
