Minority education program founder awarded last night

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A reception honoring Roy Peterson, the Kentucky Secretary of Education, Arts and Humanities, for his work in promoting higher education to minority students was held last night.

Peterson founded the Minority College Awareness Program. MCAP is a Saturday session that provides additional training to the education of grade school and high school students.

Students, parents and colleagues of Peterson praised him for his efforts in setting up and maintaining the program. Several students who participate in MCAP spoke briefly about their positive experiences in the program.

Monica Higgins, a fifth-grader at Second Street School in Frankfort, gets up early two Saturdays a month to attend the classes in Lexington.

"MCAP really made me a better person," Higgins said.

Cecil Gardner is a seventh grader at Lexington Traditional Magnet. In addition to the valuable help he receives in mathematics, Gardner appreciates the intangibles that he learns from MCAP.

"Excellence is all of us working together. We seek it with dedication," Gardner said.

The parents of the MCAP students also had the opportunity to speak.

Stuart Buckner, whose son Taylor is involved in the program, compared MCAP to a womb that nurtures children and readies them for life's difficulties.

Gerald Jackson believes in MCAP enough to enroll his three children in it.

"It introduces them to new and innovative ideas not part of the school program," Jackson said.

MCAP itself is run through the hard work of dedicated teachers, one of whom is Felicia Grundy. She is a language arts teacher for fourth through sixth graders.

Her classes include exercises to increase students' vocabulary, circle stories that start and end in the same manner and readings from the works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Langston Hughes.

"I believe we prepare our children very well for the outside world," Grundy said.

Peterson was presented a number of awards from the parents and participating institutions such as Henderson Community College and Morehead State University.

He also received a congratulatory letter from Gov. Paul Patton, who called Peterson a great educator, leader and human being. Patton added that Peterson was the perfect addition to his cabinet.

Peterson promised to continue to work directly with the kids even though he has taken on more responsibility as a cabinet appointee.

He emphasized the importance of the role of the parents in their children's education.

"Unless we have support at home we can't do nearly as much as we'd like to," Peterson said.