ELIZABETHTOWN — Kelva Autry-Jones, a native of Bladen County, returns as the featured speaker for Saturday night’s Bladen County Training School-Bladen Central High School Alumni Association Annual Awards Banquet.
The celebration, open to the public, is at 7 p.m. in the The Paul Brown Building. Along with scholarships, awards will be presented to individuals for community service, spiritual guidance and service to the youth. Paul Brown Academy’s award-winning rifle and drill team will also perform.
Autry-Jones, a 2004 graduate of East Bladen High School, is the daughter of Kevin and Johnice Autry of Elizabethtown. She earned her undergraduate degree in education from Fayetteville State, a double master’s in biology and math from Fayetteville State, and is a candidate for a doctorate at Capella University in Minneapolis.
After teaching school for several years in Hoke County, she taught for two years at Diyafah International School in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. She also taught for one year at Suzhou-Singapore International School in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China.
She’s now teaching in Wake County, where she lives with her husband Jonathan and their children Kaliya and Jonathan Jr.