news-record.com

Valda Boyd-Ford of Nebraska and Bruce E. Davis of High Point have been honored as High Point Housing Authority's 2008 Pillars of Fame recipients.

Honorees must be former public-housing residents, have a high school diploma or equivalent and have served their communities through service or civic duties. Pillar honorees are role models for youths in public housing.

Boyd-Ford, 54, and is founder and chief executive officer of the Center for Human Diversity in Nebraska.

She lived in the Clara Cox, Carson Stout, Daniel Brooks, J.C. Morgan Courts and other communities in High Point from 1958 through 1971.

Davis, 51, is a Guilford County commissioner. He also owns Kid Appeal Learning Center in High Point.

He lived in the Carson Stout community from January 1972 to July 1975.

"The way you live and your economic status can be temporary," Boyd-Ford said. "It's not a harbinger for the rest of your life."

She teaches people that just because they have poor circumstances doesn't mean they can't contribute to their community.

"I work with a lot of people who are vulnerable in the community," she said. "They may not have a lot of money or may not be formally educated."

She also works with organizations to improve workplace culture and trains teachers and social workers to work with diverse populations and refugees.

"Growing up in High Point was an interesting experience," Boyd-Ford said. "I had the opportunity to live through segregation."

She said her experience attending Andrews High School in 1969 was vastly different than that of black students attending Central High. "It wasn't painful in my school. It was pretty easy." She credits the students' similar working-class backgrounds to providing stability in the school, whereas Central had both poor and upper-class students.

The children of people who cleaned the mansions attended school with students who lived in them, she said.

It was at Andrews that Boyd-Ford learned that finding "common ground is how to begin with getting along in society."

Boyd-Ford is honored to have received the recognition.

Davis said he and his brothers and sisters were proud to move into the Carson Stout community. "Moving into Carson Stout was a move up at the time because of the places and neighborhoods we had lived in."

Watching his parents, Arlitha Davis and the late Edward Melvin Davis, work every day shaped Davis' work ethic and world view. He learned, "If you work hard and keep your nose clean, you will be able to eventually reap those benefits."

Davis has served on a variety of High Point and Guilford County boards and nonprofits. He received the 2008 Triad African American Achievers Award, was recognized by the North Carolina Interagency Council for coordinating a 10-year plan to end homelessness in Guilford County and was featured as a Mover and Shaker in April 2004 issue of Biz Life magazine.

"It's an honor to be recognized and I accept the award on behalf of my mother and father, who always stuck by us and have been there for us," Davis said. "Our parents always taught us to give back and to share."

Contact E.A. Seagraves at 883-4422, Ext. 241, or elizabeth.seagraves@news-record.com