WS Chronicle

Now that we have returned to some semblance of normalcy, we can begin to congregate together again. The Sportsmen Club will once again have their annual Winston-Salem/Forsyth County High School Sports Hall of Fame banquet and this year they will induct the 2020 and 2022 classes on the same evening.  

The 37th annual Hall of Fame banquet will take place on Friday, May 6, at 7 p.m. at the Benton Convention Center.  

The 2020 class will include: Maiysha Bryant (Parkland), Nateja Hale (Parkland), Ricky D. Holt (Winston-Salem Prep), Erin Morrison (Parkland), Bryce Sherman (Carver) and Ebony Williams (Parkland). The 2022 class includes: Brad Craddock (Glenn), Delayo Dodd (Carver), Dr. Cerina Buchanan Hunt (West Forsyth), Brandon Isaiah (Parkland), Tory Joyner (Carver), Geno Segers (East Forsyth) and Dr. Ronald Stone (Kernersville).

The members of the Sportsmen Club are eager to once again honor some of the best athletes that have ever come through Forsyth County.

“We are very ecstatic to go back to honoring our local high school legends,” said Chris Kirkpatrick, Sportsmen Club member and member of the hall of fame. “We have been kind of on hold for the last three years. This is great to be back to honor the local sports legends.”

To be inducted into the hall of fame, an honoree has to be nominated and the members go over their qualifications and a determination is made.

“There is a nomination process and anybody can nominate anybody they think is worthy,” said Kirkpatrick. “We have a criteria that is listed and you have to fill out a nomination application. Along with that application, a scrapbook has to be submitted with a sports resume that highlights all of your accolades and awards and we use that as documentation.

“Every year the deadline is March 16 for that class year, and we go through and pull those nominations out and we submit them to our hall of fame committee which is comprised of figures from the community: teachers, hall of famers, officials and administrators. The screening committee goes through and validates each one of the criteria to make sure they are actually qualified for nomination.  

“Once approved by the screening committee, it goes to our hall of fame committee at the Winston-Salem Sportsmen Club. We go through the material and we have our vote and in order to be elected to the hall of fame, you have to receive 60% of the vote from our active membership.”

Kirkpatrick has firsthand knowledge of what it feels like to be inducted into the hall of fame, being a member himself. He said he enjoys being a part of inducting new members into the hall and having them be honored for their stellar careers.

“It makes us feel great to honor them. I can speak to it from personal experience because I got elected to the hall of fame myself in 2005, so I remember that feeling and now it’s kind of like every year when you have a class you relive that feeling through the folks that get elected to come in,” Kirkpatrick said. There’s a lot of folks that played high school sports that were very good in high school. 

“Some go on to play college and some escalate to the pros, but it’s several that don’t get to go past the high school level and you get to a point in your life when your sports career is over. But then you actually get nominated for the high school hall of fame and get rewarded for your high school performance and it kind of brings all that back and allows you to celebrate your high school career. It’s really special and we enjoy seeing the joy on the faces of the inductees and their families when they are officially inducted into the hall of fame.”

Tickets for the event are $35 and must be purchased by May 2. You can obtain tickets by contacting Aldeen Smith at 336-682-3493.