Storytellers, BES Students Celebrate Black History Month

BY CHARLENE SHARPE STAFF WRITER

BERLIN – Students at Buckingham Elementary School are celebrating Black History Month through the arts of storytelling.

Throughout February, various storytellers, whether they communicate through music, words or images, are visiting Buckingham to share their craft with students. Jay Coleman, the artist who painted the town’s Charles Albert Tindley mural, and Daniel Bowen, the musician and composer behind Symphony 21, visited last week.

Author Carole B. Weatherford, who wrote about Tindley’s life in “By and By,” and Bryan Collier, the illustrator who worked with her on “By and By,” are set to visit in the coming days as well.

“We wanted to show our kids that each person has a story to tell and there are different ways to tell those stories,” said Melissa Reid, art teacher at Buckingham.

Reid said that she worked with Caitlin Bunting, the school’s media specialist, to build on a Black History Month program launched last year. While the students last year focused on learning about Tindley, as work was underway to create a mural in Berlin in his honor, this year the school has expanded the program to focus on African American storytellers. Coleman showed students his vibrant paintings and how he comes up with them while Bowen visited Friday and demonstrated to kids how he uses music to evoke feelings and tell stories.

Reid said Bowen, who attended Buckingham as a child, showed students how different music triggered different feelings. He even drew a picture and showed how different sounds could be used to depict what was in the illustration.

“He was great because he pulled various storytelling aspects together,” Reid said.

The next two guests include Collier, a Pocomoke native whose illustrations have earned numerous awards, and Weatherford, who has written more than 60 books and is a Coretta Scott King Award winner, a Newbery Honor winner and a two-time NAACP Image Award winner.

“It’s great for kids to see you can make a living writing books, making paintings, creating music,” Reid said.

With guest speakers who are known for telling the stories of famous historical figures but also have noteworthy backgrounds themselves, educators are hoping to show students that everyone has a story.

Throughout the month, students are working with Reid and Bunting on telling and illustrating their own stories. Reid says she tells students something as simple as a tale about recess could prove informative to people a hundred years from now.

“We’re trying to bring home the point everyone’s life is a story and is going to have some historical value one day,” she said.

State Champs: Stephen Decatur High School’s varsity wrestling team won its fourth straight state championship last week, defeating Middletown, 33-25, in the semi-finals and top-seeded Sparrows Point, 49-18. The team, under the leadership of first-year head coach Josh August, is pictured above celebrating the achievement.

Submitted Photo