By Matthew Cox
Staff Writer
Reverend Vant Hardaway of Athens City Schools started off the Tennessee Wesleyan College convocation schedule for the spring semester of 2010. Reverend Hardaway is a well-known person to the community and to the college itself. He was a student here at Tennessee Wesleyan back in the day. He came to Tennessee Wesleyan on January 19, 2010, to give a convocation in celebration of Martin Luther King Day.
The main thing he talked about was the movement that happened when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was alive. He told us how most college students are too young to remember how it all started. The convocation itself was packed inside of Trinity United Methodist Church in Athens, Tennessee. Everyone in attendance seemed really interested in what Reverend Vant Hardaway had to say. He was a man who could get your attention with very few words in a short amount time.
Reverend Vant Hardaway’s mother decided to move to Athens when he was young, and that is where he stayed. You can catch Reverend Hardaway around the community often, trying his hardest to get young people to come to college to better their lives. Of course, Reverend Vant Hardaway is not the only one in his family to come to Tennessee Wesleyan. Many people in his family have been and are currently at Tennessee Wesleyan. He told us something that would make Tennessee Wesleyan proud, “I guess you can say Tennessee Wesleyan has been good to the Hardaways.” Right now, Reverend Hardaway has three of his very own family members attending Tennessee Wesleyan, which makes him really proud.
Reverend Vant Hardaway is a man who has really made a name for himself. He is the pastor of First United Church of Christ, a local church in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is a wise and encouraging man. Reverend Hardaway can always be reached in the community through some way, and everyone knows him.
At the convocation, the attendees sang “We Shall Overcome,” and Reverend Hardaway was looking at all the students while they were singing. Once they finished singing, he asked how many people knew the complete song. Not too many people knew the song, because it is not sung very often anymore. He said that “We Shall Overcome” was a song that he once had to sing every day when he was in school. He even remembered singing it in convocation when he attended school at Tennessee Wesleyan. So, the first convocation of the new year was a great way to begin a new semester here at Tennessee Wesleyan.
