Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 18, 1993 TAG: 9311180303
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
They invite their sons and grandsons to a banquet. If they don't have a son, they invite a nephew or kids from church or boys whose dads are not around.
Since long before male role models became a national issue, the YMCA Family Center Branch's annual father-son banquet has showcased proud black men. Sometimes nearly 400 would come - doctors, lawyers, ministers and laborers with the railroad.
"You had your educators, you had people who owned their own businesses," said Millard Bolden, whose uncle took him when he and his fraternal twin, Willard, were boys. Watching all those impressive men, "We'd say, `Well, I'd like to do that someday.' It was a great impact on our lives."
By the 1980s, banquet attendance had dwindled.
But the event is building new steam. It drew 230 men and boys last year; and Bolden, program director at the YMCA Family Center and organizer of the banquet, is hoping for more this year.
His fraternity brother at Virginia State College in Petersburg, Lynchburg auto dealer and former Detroit Lions defensive end Jim Mitchell, will speak at the banquet Monday night at Ruffner Middle School.
"I'm going to talk about my dad and how I think a lot of the problems of today could be solved by some good strong guidance from fathers," Mitchell said.
Henry A. Mitchell of Danville raised Jim, his brother and three sisters after their mother died. Jim, the youngest, was 10. His siblings went on to careers in the Navy, publishing, youth services and finance.
Jim Mitchell left the Lions in 1978 and now owns several companies - Lynchburg Ford; Appomattox Ford-Mercury; Danville radio station WDVA; Keo Media Group in Raleigh, N.C.; and Central Virginia Acceptance Corp.
As for his dad, Jim Mitchell said he's still going strong at 88 and looks more like 68.
Jim Mitchell, well-known for his TV commercials in which the former pro player promises to "tackle any deal," doesn't do many public appearances. They take time from work. But he said "yes" to Bolden's banquet invitation. "This one, I thought, was a worthy cause."
Alphonso L. Holland Sr., a YMCA leader for many years, sometimes brings as many as 10 boys or young men to the banquet. This time, he plans to bring four great-grandsons.
Holland was just a young fellow himself when he went to the very first father-son banquet at the Dumas Hotel on Roanoke's historic Henry Street. He says it was around the late 1930s and was begun by the late Lloyd A. Lee, first executive secretary of the old segregation-era Hunton YMCA in Gainsboro.
Alexander White, another early patron of the banquets, remembers Boy Scouts decorating the hotel with autumn leaves and songs by a male chorus of Norfolk and Western Railway workers. "It was one of the highlights of our year," he said.
Eventually, the dinner outgrew the hotel and moved to the spacious Star City Auditorium at Henry Street and Wells Avenue.
Millard Bolden remembers crowds filling the dance floor and the balcony in the 1950s and '60s. "It would be packed. It would take forever to get out of there."
The banquet's seen many changes. The Star City Auditorium has been demolished. Men once cooked and served the dinner themselves. Now, it's catered. And some women and girls attend the banquet, too.
Bolden has asked a dozen Roanoke Valley churches to help get out a big crowd. His fraternity, the Roanoke Alumni Chapter of Kappa Alpha Psi, will buy banquet tickets for many young men; and the YMCA Family Center is inviting members of its eight basketball teams.
There are prizes for churches that draw the biggest crowds, and for the oldest father, the youngest son and fathers and sons who look the most alike. For years, the award for fathers with the most sons was a tight contest between the big Claytor clan, a prominent medical family, and the Lynches, the family of rookie Los Angeles Lakers forward George Lynch.
Some men bring infant sons. "I've seen them come in at 8 or 9 months old," Bolden said. Men in their 80s come with retirement-age sons.
Bolden plans to exhibit pictures of past banquets - a kind of Who's Who of the black men of Roanoke. He says you can pick out people such as the owners of Hamlar & Curtis Funeral Home when they were just starting out. (They fund the banquet's cash prizes.)
Bolden plans to dine with his uncle, Charles Williams, the man who brought him to the banquet so many years ago. "He's my special guest."
The banquet will be held at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 22 at William Ruffner Middle School. The $4 tickets can be purchased at the YMCA Family Center Branch, 108 Orange Ave. N.W., or at many Roanoke Valley churches. For information, call the Family Center, 344-9622.
by CNB