Atkins High School senior wins $2,500 scholarship
Adia Carter received the Dr. J. Ray Butler Memorial Scholarship.
Adia Carter, a senior at Simon G. Atkins Academic and Technology High School, received the Dr. J. Ray Butler Memorial Scholarship in the 2020 Martin Luther King Social Action Committee (MLK-SAC) Oratorical competition Saturday, Jan. 18. The $2,500 award was presented during the 19th Martin Luther King Community Service Awards Dinner & Oratorical Contest sponsored by the MLK-SAC, Inc. of Thomasville and held in the Mary E. Rittling Conference Center at Davidson County Community College.
Using the contest theme as her oration title, Adia charged her young peers: ‘Don’t Limit Your Challenges, Challenge Your Limits.’
“Don’t accept a voice, label, limit handed to you like your birthright,” she told the audience of young people and their parents, along with community and corporate supporters. “Sign your own name. Find your own path. Take each criticism and misconception with a grain of salt. Use it to take one step higher … and when you reach that limit, keep going and take it for what it was. A suggestion. A restriction that has no validity. A challenge that will never be your limit,” she said.
Adia is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Thurmond R. Carter, Jr. She finished third in the 2019 oratorical contest, receiving a $2,000 award. She is an honor student at Atkins, where she is a varsity cheerleader and a member of the A Cappella Choir, Show Choir, Art Showcase, and Crosby Scholars. In December, she was honored for designing one of the holiday greeting cards for the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools. Adia attends First Waughtown Baptist Church and is active in the Teens of Purpose College/Career Preparatory Ministry and the Youth Choir.
Dr. George B. Jackson, president of United Cornerstone University in Thomasville, is founder and chairman of the MLK-SAC, Inc. Dr. Pamela Jackson, vice president for academic affairs at the university, is the dean of contestants for the oratorical competition. Since the contest began, the organization has awarded $144,000 in scholarships to high school juniors and seniors.
