Making good on a promise 10 years later

Luther Vandross was outed as gay after his death.

It was in 2006 that Dennis Harbaugh and Juanita Williams promised something to a class of second-graders.

At Dr. Walter Cunningham School for Excellence, they told 17 African-American 2nd graders that they would be eligible for a two-year college scholarship through the Harbaugh-Williams Education Promise Fund. Cut to their graduating year, and 10 have already graduated with plans to go to college. The rest plan to graduate soon.

Harbaugh and Williams mortgaged an apartment building they own to start the fund. They have also tirelessly reached out to other businesses in the area for help. It was two years ago that they reached their goal of raising 330,000.

The scholarships awarded will be equal to the amount of the highest tuition and fees at Iowa’s three public universities. Students will be able to receive a minimum amount of $8,000.

The class they chose at Dr. Walter Cunningham School for Excellence was an all black, all male class. The school was trying to boost their success with their students by cutting out the distraction of learning with the opposite sex.

The spring before this education fund was started, only 37.6 percent of black males in the Waterloo class of 2005 graduated.

“It really got our attention,” said Harbaugh. “There’s no way to have a strong community when you have a subgroup of the community that’s not graduating from high school. That’s just not going to work.”

DeQuann Washington, one of the graduating students, has said that the couple’s decision to do this for the students has been “life-changing” for him.

“When I was little, I didn’t know what a scholarship was,” he said. “They said ‘You lucky. You blessed.’ Now I know what they meant.”

Other students have spoken up about their struggles through the years as well.

“Over the years, I wish my grades would be better,” said Davion Givens, who is graduating from East. “I wish I would have looked up my freshman year and said, ‘Let’s get down to business.’”

Others, such as student Marquas Gafeney, are not fully caught up in their classes but are working hard to get there.

“I wish I would have had better grades, better GPA,” said Gafeney, adding that he would have done “less partying.”

Tyriq O’Neal plans to finish up his credit requirements in the next year but says that he started having trouble during the transition from middle school.

“Coming into high school there was a lot of challenges,” said O’Neal, “When I first came into (high school) I wasn’t doing no kind of work.”

He almost dropped out last year, “I just had to dig deep,” he said. “I went from 19 credits to 39.” Students need 44 credits to graduate.

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