AT&T Issues Call For Nominations For 2017 Heritage Calendar

RALEIGH, N.C., March 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- AT&T* is accepting nominations of individuals to be honored in the 2017 edition of "The Heritage Calendar: Celebrating the NC African-American Experience."

The project honors men and women of all races who have contributed significantly to the lives and experiences of African-Americans in the state. In addition to monthly honorees, the calendar highlights dates of significance in North Carolina and nationally.

To nominate an individual for consideration, please go to www.ncheritagecalendar.com/nominate. Nominations for consideration for the 2017 edition must be received by April 15, 2016.

Western Carolina University is joining The Heritage Calendar project this year.  A team of WCU students, led by Elizabeth Gillespie McRae, associate professor of history and director of graduate social science education programs, will interview the honorees and write profiles to be published in the printed edition of the 2017 calendar and on the project's website.

"We are excited about this opportunity for our students and our university," said WCU Chancellor David O. Belcher. "This promises to be a great educational enhancement for our students, giving them valuable hands-on experience both as writers and as historians, while also enabling Western Carolina University to help people across the state to connect with their heritage and their neighbors."

The 2016 Heritage Calendar's honorees included:

• Julius Chambers, James Ferguson and Adam Stein, founding members of a Charlotte law firm who championed a series of major civil rights cases in the 1970s;
• Dudley Flood, a nationally-known educator;
• Jana Jones Halls, a non-profit leader in Wilmington,
• Joan Higginbotham, the third African-American woman to fly in space;
• the late Zora Neale Hurston, one of America's most significant African-American women writers;
• John Harding Lucas, a Rocky Mount native whose career as an educator included serving as a public school principal and university president;
• the late Moses "Bicycle Man" Mathis and Ann Mathis, community activists who have impacted children in need;
• Ruth Revels, a Native American teacher who has spent her life working to build understanding and unity among all ethnicities;
• the late Mary Duke Biddle Trent Semans, a philanthropist who helped ensure that her family's foundation faithfully executed its mission of supporting higher education, health care and children's welfare in the Carolinas;
• Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin, the director of the Forsyth County Public Library;
• Cleon Thompson, who served as chancellor at two universities over the span of a 49-year career in higher education; and
• the late LeRoy Walker, the first African-American president of the United States Olympic Committee, who also served more than 40 years at NC Central University.

Another component of the project is lesson plans based on the life of each honoree, developed by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) and available online as resources for educators statewide.

Other primary supporters on The Heritage Calendar project are The News & Observer, Capitol Broadcasting Company/WRAL-TV, PNC Bank, and the Sheraton Raleigh hotel.

*AT&T products and services are provided or offered by subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. under the AT&T brand and not by AT&T Inc.

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