Six people will be inducted into Richland 1’s Hall of Fame next year, district officials announced Wednesday.

New members of the Hall of Fame, which recognizes significant community contributions by district alumni, include:

•  Pastor Sam Goodwin, a 1961 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School who was a star athlete in basketball and football in high school and at South Carolina State University and who later became pastor and founder of Stedfast Christian Center in Columbia.

•  Jean Sanders Hopkins, a 1950 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School whose many contributions to the nursing profession in South Carolina include more than 16 years of service as a school nurse in Richland 1.

•  Sen. Phil Leventis, a 1964 graduate of A.C. Flora High School, a former fighter pilot and a retired brigadier general in the S.C. National Guard who has served in the state Senate for more than 30 years.

• Martha Cunningham Monteith, a native of Union who organized the first speech pathology program in South Carolina’s public schools and worked with Richland 1 45 years before retiring as coordinator of speech pathology.

• Jasper Salmond, a native of Camden and a former Richland 1 elementary school principal who later joined Wilbur Smith Associates consulting firm and served on the Richland 1 school board for 20 years.

• The late Albert N. Thompson Sr., a 1936 graduate of Booker T. Washington High School who successfully brought a lawsuit against Richland County Schools in 1944 (Thompson vs. Gibbes, et al.) to equalize the salaries of African-American teachers with white teachers. He served as a professor at Texas Southern University for 50 years after he and his wife were terminated from their teaching jobs in Richland County.

A ceremony will be held Jan. 26 in Columbia to honor this year’s inductees. Forty-one people have been inducted into the Hall of Fame since it was established in 2004.

For details about the ceremony, contact Richland 1 public information, (803) 231-7504.

From Staff Reports