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GREENSBORO — ChaQuanda Graham felt her heart drop.

She saw all those people inside Greensboro’s Special Events Center last weekend, and she felt nervousness rise in her throat.

“Don’t cry; don’t cry,’’ she told herself. “Keep it together.’’

She didn’t want her mascara to run. But it was more than that. She wanted to remember this — standing in a green graduation gown and getting ready to grab her diploma before she starts the next phase of her life: studying nursing this fall at N.C. Central.

In the stands, her mother, Trinetta Graham, could hardly contain her excitement. She had dropped out of Dudley High at 16 to have ChaQuanda. She never went back.

She knows she’ll get her diploma some day. But Saturday morning, she stood, camera in hand, getting ready to chronicle the achievement of her two Smith High daughters, ChaQuanda Graham and Desirae Hamilton.

They’re graduating from high school.

“It is amazing!’’ Trinetta, a 34-year-old certified nursing assistant, said over and over for everyone to hear, even a few rows over. “Hallelujah! Lord, thank you Jesus!’’

Amazing? Maybe. Think where ChaQuanda was 18 months ago.

She was in jail. She was only 16.

She looked then like she does today — 112 pounds, a few inches over 5 feet, slender as a rail. But ChaQuanda is a fighter. She doesn’t take, as she’ll tell you, “people talking junk.’’

She got suspended from school 10 times for fighting and cutting class her first two years at Smith. By her junior year, she dropped out, got a job as a cashier at Cook-Out and earned $6.55 an hour.

Then came the phone call.

It was a Wednesday, September 2007. Her sister, Desirae, 10 months her junior, called. She needed help. A girl bigger and heavier than Desirae wanted to fight her at Hampton Homes over the affections of some guy.

ChaQuanda went to protect her sister. She called the girl out and fought her for at least 10 minutes before police came.

According to court records, ChaQuanda cut the girl’s forearm with a knife. ChaQuanda says no, the knife belonged to the girl. She says she hit the girl with her fists.

No matter. The charge was the same: misdemeanor assault with a deadly weapon.

A week or so before Thanksgiving 2007, ChaQuanda spent five days in jail. She stayed in a cell with at least 20 other women and slept most of the time, crashing on a thin mattress with sheets that smelled of urine.

There, she met Tammy, one of her mom’s best friends from Dudley. She was in for selling drugs. She told ChaQuanda that jail was no place for her.

“You don’t belong in here,’’ Tammy told her, “and you need to make better decisions about the choices you make.’’

The day she got out, ChaQuanda had news for her mother.

“Momma, I ain’t going back,’’ she said. “I’m not getting in any more trouble.’’

She hasn’t. ChaQuanda went back to Smith. She didn’t skip classes. She studied. She earned As and Bs. And she learned how to walk away from trouble.

She also asked teachers and counselors for help, such as school counselor Gloria Boyd. Last fall, she asked Boyd to help her put together her senior project, a 10-page paper on hypertension among African Americans.

“I want to do something with my life,’’ ChaQuanda told Boyd. “Can you help me?’’

This spring, ChaQuanda won a school essay contest. She also won the Hayes Clement Award, an honor given by the nonprofit Communities In Schools to the most outstanding student at Dudley and Smith.

The award will provide ChaQuanda with a $500 scholarship every year for four years.

ChaQuanda keeps the trophy in her living room on top of the TV. At nearly 3 feet tall, the trophy is nearly as  tall as her. But that’s not the first thing you see when you walk in.

Pass the collection of front-yard graduation banners and balloons, and there, on a shelf a few steps from the front door is her Smith High diploma.

She wants everyone to see that. She made it.
 

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com