JOAN BOOKMAN WEATHERSBY will be among the living Miss Wheatleys who will be honored during Phillis Wheatley High School’s “Purple and White Gala” that will be held on Nov. 16, 2002, at the George R. Brown Convention Center. The gala will be the feature attraction of a three-day (Nov. 14-17) celebration to commemorate Wheatley’s 75 years of educational achievement and excellence.  Bookman who was Miss Wheatley in 1954, is hopeful that she will share center stage with every surviving Miss Wheatley since the school’s founding. That includes Mrs. Wilma Hollingan Hogan, who reigned as the first Miss Wheatley in 1929, who are still alive, vibrant and beautiful. Miss Wheatley Jewel Peacock Phillips (1933-34), Otha Ree Wheatley (1935-36), Dorothyrine Dale (1937-38), Daisy Jacks Allen (1945-46), Ethlyn Beal Guidry (1951-52), Edolie Elie (1955-56) and Alice McCloud Malone (1966-67), will be honored posthumously. In the interim, The Miss Wheatley 75th Anniversary Committee needs the community’s help to locate 10 Miss Wheatleys.

Meanwhile, it quickly becomes obvious that most of the Miss Wheatleys lived up to expectations and became outstanding citizens and Joan Bookman, who reigned over a court that included: Verna Chavis (maid of honor), Grace Sanders Williams (11th grade attendant) and a 10th grade attendant named Freddie Sparks, who is better known today at Texas Southern University as Dr. Polly Turner, the widow of outstanding educator/musician Otis Turner. The Miss Wheatley escorts were Durwood Collins, who was a legendary Wheatley trainer and Willie Jordan, who is currently one of Houston’s top-flight architects. On May 17, during Bookman’s reign America changed forever when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, that segregation had no place in public education. Thus it overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision. On June 2, 1954 the Supreme Court ruling began to impact Houston, Texas in many ways. Among them was an ordinance, passed by Mayor Roy Hofheinz and Houston’s City Council, that abolished segregation on the city owned golf courses. During the year, the mayor also agreed to desegregate all library facilities. Also, segregation on all buses ended. And Wheatley was on the move.

Betty Jean Anderson won the Annual Student Symphony Audition and performed with the Houston Symphony Orchestra. Several years earlier soprano Bertie Lee Crosby (the mother of TSU’s Rev. Lloyd Crosby) had broken the color barrier when she sang at the Sam Houston Coliseum. Wheatley’s sports teams was also going through a transition when Frank “The Mad Frenchman” Walker took over as Wheatley’s head football coach after Coach Rutherford Countee stepped down. Walker, who had starred at Wheatley and was an All-American quarterback at Southern University, promptly won a state championship. Not to be outdone, Basketball Coach Collins Brigg’s Wheatley Wildcats posted a 25-2 record and won another state championship.

Bookman, after graduating from Wheatley enrolled at Howard University in Washington, D.C. and graduated with a B.S. in Dental Hygiene in 1958 and worked at the Veteran Hospital as a dental hygienist for 35 years before retiring. Bookman remained active in the Fifth Ward community and was the first aide to run newly elected State Rep. Harold V. Dutton, Jr.’s office, that was located on Lyons Avenue. She married Anthony Weathersby, but after two years divorced and raised a fine son who owns a Farmer’s Insurance Agency in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

“ It’s gong to be a blast,” she says of Wheatley’s 75th Anniversary that will be held at the Sheraton Houston Brookhollow Hotel, 3000 North Loop West, Nov. 14 - 17, 2002. The Phillis Wheatley Metropolitan Alumni and Ex-Students Association are coordinating the event. “ I can’t wait to see all of those Miss Wheatleys. I hope they were able to locate all of those who are still living and able to participate,” she concluded. There is no name or address for Miss Wheatley of 1989-90, therefore members of that class who have information about her is asked to please call Natalie Osborne Porter, Miss Wheatley 1954-55, at 281/485-2004. Porter, who chairs the Miss Wheatley search committee is also seeking addresses and/or phone numbers to nine other Miss Wheatleys who have yet to be found: Bonnie Rhea Sublette (1938-39), Elouise Curtis (1962-63), Dianna Davis Lewis (1968-69), Debra Ann Brown (1972-73), Constance Brooks (1973-74), Robbie Gardner (1974-75), Cynthia Whittaker (1977-78), Kendra Davis (1986-87) and Claudia Quentilio (1993-94) and Penny Marie Bryant Rigmaiden (1980-81). Ladies please call 281/485-2004, or call Reese Buggs at 713/692-9192.