First Posted: 3/31/2014

To the Editor,

This past weekend the third annual Dancing with the Robeson County All-Stars was conducted. The event was fun and successful. The purpose was to raise funds to support the education initiatives for the United Way of Robeson County.

As a resident of Robeson County and an employee of UNC Pembroke, the event elevated my pride towards both. Under the leadership of United Way of Robeson County Executive Director Sandra Oliver, the event netted in excess of $130,000 for our county. Sandra will be the first to deflect the credit for the event to the show directors, co-chairs, dancers, judges, choreographers, various committees, show directors, and volunteers.

In all of the above groups I beamed with pride when I saw the influence of UNC Pembroke amongst them. Examples included 10 of the 16 dance teams either included UNCP employees or alumni, UNCP Chancellor Kyle Carter and his wife Sarah where instrumental in securing student volunteers, various planning and logistical committees for Dancing with the Stars, included UNCP grads/mployees like Mickey Gregory, Christy Poteet, Jonathan and Kellie Blue, Shelena Smith, Matt Patterson, and many others.

Our county has a myriad of issues we need to deal with and almost of all them can be improved with education. Within the borders of Robeson County we have a state community college and UNC Pembroke. These two educational organizations add more than economic impact to our community. I believe that they pump leadership and civic-minded people into our community.

This past weekend’s event reinforced and demonstrated to me that in Robeson County we have leaders in our community who want to see us use education initiatives to improve. I was glad to see that a lot of the leaders and doer’s for the third annual Dancing with the Robeson County All-Stars have a connection to UNC Pembroke and the Brave Nation.

Dan Kenney

Lumberton, NC