Hampton University will welcome the Honorable John Charles Thomas, to its 114th Annual Founder's Day Ceremony in Ogden Hall on Jan. 28 at 11:30 a.m. The Founder's Day program recognizes and pays tribute to the University's founder, Gen. Samuel Chapman Armstrong.

Prior to the service, there will be a commemorative wreath-placing ceremony at the gravesite of the University's founder in the Hampton University Cemetery at 9:30 a.m.

During the program, HU President William R. Harvey will present several President Citizenship awards to prestigious leaders throughout the community. Thomas received his bachelor's degree in American government, from the University of Virginia in 1972. He also received a J.D., at the University of Virginia School of Law in 1975. He is currently a partner at Hunton & Williams, LLP in Richmond, Va. For seven years, Thomas served as a justice on the Supreme Court of Virginia. He has authored more than 200 decisions concerning contracts, real property, trusts and estates.

Thomas argued appellate matters involving traumatic brain injury, international letters of credit, dealership terminations, automobile crashworthiness, workers compensation, medical malpractice and public official's rights to hold office. Thomas is a member of the Board of Visitors of the College of William & Mary; Virginia State Bar, Virginia Bar Association, Richmond Bar Association and American Bar Association.

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For more information contact Yuri Rodgers Milligan@ (757) 727-5253 or email yuri.milligan@hamptonu.edu

Carry on flame, former state justice tells HU students
A packed auditorium remembers Hampton University's founder with words of praise.

BY KIM O'BRIEN ROOT
928-6473

January 29 2007

HAMPTON -- Hampton University paid tribute to its founder Sunday during a ceremony that challenged students to continue writing history.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong was a Union general who led an all-black unit into battle during the Civil War. After the war, Armstrong - who was white - worked for the Freedmen's Bureau in Hampton, where he helped tens of thousands of former slaves obtain land and rations from the government.

Wanting to do more to help educate black men and women, the 27-year-old Armstrong - in 1868 - founded the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, which would one day become Hampton University.

Within a few years, the school began sending out educators to teach at new schools for black children in the postwar South.

Armstrong was a man whose genius "is just as apparent today as it was in 1868," HU President William R. Harvey said during the annual Founder's Day ceremony. "It is right and good that we respectfully remember."

Sunday's ceremony took place in a packed Ogden Hall on the university's campus. It featured remarks from John Charles Thomas - the first black person to serve on the Virginia Supreme Court.

Thomas, who served on the state's highest court for seven years and now is a Richmond lawyer, gave a rousing speech that had attendees nodding their heads in approval. Although he attended the University of Virginia, Thomas said he knows HU well because many family members went there.

Thomas challenged students - including the freshman class in attendance - to become an active part of history: to pick up the flame and carry it forward, to stand up and be counted and to let their voices be heard.

Today, Thomas pointed out, there are still blacks being named as the "first" to reach a milestone. Hampton-born Mike Tomlin was recently named as the first black head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Also, both teams in Sunday's Super Bowl will for the first time be led by black coaches.

That means history is yet to be made, Thomas said.

"History doesn't stop," he said.

"The history of Hampton 100 years from now is the history you will write."

Sunday's ceremony also honored the recipients of the 2007 Presidential Citizenship Award:

Retired California physician Ellamae Simmons, who went to Hampton's nursing school in the 1930s and has been a supporter ever since "Dr. Harvey taught me never to dream a small dream," she said.

Benjamin J. Lambert III, a state senator, who was nearly thrown off the Richmond Democratic Committee for supporting George Allen in last year's U.S. Senate election. He said he backed Allen for trying to secure federal funding to purchase technology equipment for historically black colleges and universities.
Copyright © 2007, Daily Press