Forever first: Initial sixth-grade group graduating from Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy

ELIZABETHTOWN — Not that long ago parents and five students embarked on a journey into uncharted territory and this weekend those families will see fruits of their labor.

Dazmire Bethea, DeNaja King, Valli Dixon, Jessica Lamb and Simeon Murchison found themselves at Paul R. Brown Leadership Academy, a military charter school on the brink of launching in the fall of 2013. Saturday, the grades 6-12 school under the direction of Superintendent Keisha White will — after waiting out delays due to the coronavirus — celebrate another graduation, this time finally reaching that first group of students to complete each grade at the school.

Dixon, Lamb and Murchison describe students and a school intertwined, new to exerperiences and finding their way together. Their parents speak of positive results beyond just education curriculum. Attempts to reach Bethea and King for this story were unsuccessful.

“When I first sent my son there I was desperate,” Cindy Rhodie said of her son, Murchison. “I needed a male role model in his life.”

That desperation for her son got Rhodie talking to Lt. Col. Carl Lloyd, the commandant of cadets. Lloyd has also been there since the start.

“I started to recruit others in the community,” she said. “It was rough in this area and I needed to save my child.”

Rhodie said her son gained structure, and that him attending was about “teaching him what he needed to succeed in life.”

At first she said he was shut down, and she felt like she couldn’t reach him, but the school helped him open up, and as he got older there was a shift.

“There is a community of young black men, and in this community I am afraid for them and other young men in the area,” she said.

Murchison said that he was going to barber school now that he’s graduating.

“I really knew everybody before I came,” Murchison said. “Everybody I went to school with I knew, through my childhood. So I wasn’t really nervous or nothing.”

Dixon says the school is good and has made progress.

“I’m glad that I can see where it started from to where it’s going on to now, because in the beginning, it was really … it was crazy,” she said. “There was a lot of PT. We still have physical training but it was not as bad as it was the first year. I was nervous because I didn’t know what to expect. I actually thought it was going to be worse than what it was.”

That getting into shape was one of the things that everyone experienced, and they all said that the first parade that they participated in, which was in White Lake, was grueling.

“I about died,” Dixon said. “I was not prepared for something like that.”

The White Lake parade is the longest parade of the year for them.

“We did it before the school actually opened,” she said. “But as the years went on and we continued to do it, I got better.”

Murchison said that parade was the hardest thing for him, too. They gained discipline and work ethic.

“We are all close, but we have our days,” he said of the Class of 2020.

“I would say that I learned how to handle situations responsibly,” Dixon said.

Her mother, Chandra Britton, said it has been a very good experience for her.

“She has a younger sibling there as well,” said Britton. “The teachers, headmasters, and staff have all been great. The trips and routines were awesome.”

Dixon even went back to public school for a year, but ended up back at Paul R. Brown and said that if she could go back, she would have never left the school.

Even when everyone seems to have lost their energy, Britton said that they all dig a little deeper at the school, and find more.

“I’m so thankful for their efforts,” she said.

Some of the students came just because it is a military school.

“I’m proud to be one of the first in that sixth-grade class, and be here when it first started,” Lamb said. “It now feels like a normal experience.”

Prior to attending the academy, she was homeschooled. Both of her parents were in the military.

“I was kind of nervous, I didn’t know what to expect, and I didn’t have other people to talk to about what was going on,” Lamb said. “But I just took it slow and they got better.”

“We put her there because it was a military school, and not because of discipline,” said Lamb’s father, Ronnie. “This was a good fit for her, and she felt better about herself. We didn’t expect her to be so focused.”

She loved drill team and enjoyed it and the competition, he said.

“She enjoyed it like other kids enjoyed sports,” he says.

Britton said it is a great place for a student that has maybe lost their way, or is in a little bit of trouble.

“They give the students a few chances and keep working with them and the parents,” she said.

“We are pleased that it is available in Bladen County,” said Dr. Bill Findt, the former president of Bladen Community College and one of the community’s most ardent supporters of the school since it began. “The leadership is excellent and some students even enrolled at Bladen Community College when I was there.”

Findt said that it wasn’t something that he understood at first, but more understanding led to more appreciation.

“Gosh, the value that it has,” he said. “I’m pleased it is here.”

That value translates to students learning morals and how to follow rules.

“I had been doing this for 20 years beforehand, and I just finished my seventh year here,” said Lloyd, the commandant of cadets. “Someone pointed out to me that this was the longest that I have ever stayed at a school.

“I literally got to watch them grow up. I remember them outside at PE, playing like they were little kids. I’m definitely going to miss them, because I have been with this class longer than any other class in my educational career.”

Yet not everything has been just perfect either, and Lloyd said that there have been times of disappointment.

“But they have embraced the things that we were trying to do with them,” he said.

“It was refreshing to see kids that made a choice where they can be disciplined, and be leaders in the school,” said former headmaster Roland McKoy. “They wanted to be disciplined, learn to behave and excel.”

McKoy served in the role from the beginning until just before last year, when he retired. White was named as his successor.

McKoy said he remembered students that were barely talking and never called on in class going further and further.

“They were rewarded by what they did, and that made a difference,” he said.