Prayer Breakfast Recognizes Black Community Leaders
Submitted on February 26, 2025
By James Scogin, Georgetown News-Graphic
Hundreds gathered at Georgetown College for the Bias and Barbara Tilford Prayer Breakfast and concert Saturday. Dr. M. Brandon McCormack, Pan-African Studies chair and associate professor at University of Louisville, served as keynote speaker and Jay Alexander emceed the event.
McCormack spoke of the “echoes of our ancestors” and “echoes of their ancestors.”
Amari Gilkey was recognized as the $1,000 recipient of the Bias and Barbara Tilford Scholarship Fund. Georgetown Middle School Volleyball was awarded $350. Others recognized at the breakfast were Chester Grundy, Billie Travis, David Jackson, Sen. Reginald Thomas, King Solomon Lodge, St. Paul Lodge, Justice Pamela Goodwine and The Edwards Sisters. Tamra Jones, Cathy Jones, Mark Edwards accepted the award for The Edwards Sisters.
“An active member of the Civil Rights movement, Chester Grundy helped with the establishment of the Black Student Union before graduating (UK) in 1969,” said Robbi Barber, Assistant Dean at Georgetown College. “As the director of the office of African American student affairs and the Martin Luther King Jr. Cultural Center at the University of Kentucky, he injected Black culture into a campus previously lacking it. He established the ‘Spotlight Jazz Series’ bringing jazz legends to the school and also arranged for renowned Black personalities to speak on campus.”
Grundy also co-founded the Roots and Heritage Foundation and has also worked to organize Martin Luther King Jr. celebration in Lexington.
“It’s one thing to be recognized, but it is something really special to be recognized by one’s people,” Grundy said as he accepted the award. “You don’t do things for recognition. But, it certainly helps to know it counted for something.”
Billie Travis is a longtime educator in Georgetown. Travis is “always in the spirit of the community of empowerment, information and support,” said organizer Barry Tilford.
“I am appreciative, like Mr. Grundy here,” Travis said. “We don’t do this for the award. We do this for the children. We do this for the future.”
“David Jackson is a gospel musician with connection to Georgetown,” Tilford said.
“I feel so honored to be on this platform with such wonderful and gifted people,” Jackson said. “God has been good to me, and thank you for allowing me to be on this program.”
King Solomon Lodge (#8) and St. Paul Lodge (#11) “have kept the legacy and history of (community, the graveyard and schools) in place,” Tilford said.
Justice Pamela Goodwine was recognized for her work in the Kentucky Supreme Court.
“If you have not heard her story, it is so motivating, so impressionable, and she has been through the fight. … She is an inspiration to every one of us,” Alonzo Allen said.
Goodwine credits God for helping her reach her “45-year dream,” she said. “To you, you can do it. You can make it,” Goodwine said. “Sickness, ailments do not define you, because, like I said, they gave up on me 40 years ago, but here I stand today as the first black woman sitting on Kentucky Supreme Court. I tell people, ‘I may be the first, but I’m going to make sure I am not the last.’”
Story published by the Georgetown News-Graphic on February 25, 2025.
