Golden Anniversary Celebration : Couple Who Helped Unify a Town Fete Their Union

They met when they were in college at Kentucky State University. He was a football hero. She rooted for him from the stands.

It was the middle of the Great Depression. They were black, poor and from small rural Kentucky towns. They worked their way through school. Arthur Hawkins was one of seven children. Jane Duncan was one of eight.

They fell in love, were married and held fast to their dreams.

“Dearly beloved we are gathered here in the sight of God and in the presence of these witnesses to celebrate the golden anniversary of holy matrimony,” began the Rev. Moses Sutton in Mount Sterling’s historic red-brick Keas Tabernacle Christian Methodist Church.

The church spilled over with people, half of them black, the others white. Every seat was taken. Some stood in the vestibule in the back, on the steps outside.

They had come from all across the United States to celebrate the 50th wedding anniversary of Arthur Hawkins, 76, and his wife, Jane, 73, the two best-known and most widely respected residents of Mount Sterling, population 5,800, called the Gate City because it is between the hills of eastern Kentucky and the Bluegrass of central Kentucky.

Minnie Weaver, 70, sister of the “bride,” was the matron of honor in the renewal-of-vows ceremony; best man was the Hawkins’ only son, Robert, 30. The six grandchildren of three of the couple’s four daughters were in the “wedding”:

Alishia Reese, 7, and Iman Graham, 4, flower girls; Amir Cotman, 12, Bible bearer; Matthew Reese, 6, ring bearer, and Ivan Cotman Jr., 17, and Arthur Cotman, 13, who lit the candles.

Jane and Arthur Hawkins sealed the ceremony with a kiss, and Bertha Smathers sang “I Love You Truly” and “Because.”

“This is an important day for the Hawkins family, for the church family, for the entire community,” said Sutton, 67, as those assembled jumped to their feet and congratulated the “newlyweds” with a rousing round of applause.

The silver-haired couple’s 50 years of marriage spanned an eventful half-century in American history--the Great Depression, three wars, the assassination of one President and resignation of another, women’s liberation and the revolutionary change from a racially segregated to a largely integrated society.

Jane and Arthur Hawkins played a leading part in achieving a unified community in Mount Sterling as parents, educators, role models and civic leaders in this, one of the oldest settlements in Kentucky, a small town with a black population of 1,500.

“There have been so many positive changes for everyone as America has matured,” said Jane Hawkins, recalling the necessity of “marrying Arthur in secrecy in order to keep my job. We went together all through college. Arthur took a job teaching at Dubois High School in Mount Sterling. I was a librarian and teaching elementary school in Monticello.

“At the time in my school district female teachers were not allowed to be married. So, for a year and a half after we were married, I lived with my parents. Arthur and I would visit back and forth on weekends. Jobs were not easy to come by. You held on to what you had during the Depression.”

The separation ended when she hired on as a teacher in Mount Sterling, where female teachers were permitted to be married.

Arthur Hawkins taught at the all-black Dubois High School after graduating from all-black Kentucky State University in Frankfort, Kentucky’s capital. He became principal of Dubois in 1940, continued to teach history and geography and coached football, basketball, track and other sports.

He was the last principal at Dubois. In 1964 someone set fire to the black high school. “It was out-and-out arson,” said Hawkins. “But they never caught the ones that did it.”

Mount Sterling had instant integration when the high school burned down. Hawkins became the assistant football coach at Mount Sterling High, where he also taught history and geography. Jane Hawkins taught elementary school for 15 years and was a social worker for 15 years. Arthur was the first black member of the Kentucky High School Athletic Assn.

To make certain their son and four daughters finished college, Arthur Hawkins painted houses and laid bricks in addition to teaching, coaching and being involved in school administration work. His wife ran a private kindergarten in their home and at times did domestic work.

Their oldest daughter, Jeanetta Cotman, 47, a fifth-grade teacher, came for her parents’ remarriage ceremony from Detroit with her husband, Ivan, 48, associate superintendent for rehabilitation for Michigan’s Department of Education, and their three children. “Our parents have always been in our corner. They taught us to love and be kind,” said Jeanetta.

Daughter Sara Turner, 45, who teaches sixth and eighth grades in St. Petersburg, Va., was here with her husband, Vernon, 45, an official at a Veterans Administration hospital. Daughter Arthurenia Reese, 37, had come from Boulder, Colo., with her two children. She teaches high school pottery and sculpting classes. Her husband, Ronald, 38, is an electrical engineer.

Celia V. Graham, 34, known as “C.V.,” came from Los Angeles with her daughter Iman, and her husband, Keith, 33. She is an actress and works at the Broadway Glendale in customer service. Her husband is assistant telecommunications coordinator at the Los Angeles Times. Son Robert, 30, was an All-State and All-American running back for the University of Kentucky. He was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in 1979 and played for the St. Louis Cardinals one year. He is now a therapist at a Denver mental health center. His wife, Dyonne, 30, works in a Denver bank.

“You cannot imagine the contribution of Jane and Arthur to Mount Sterling,” said Mayor Bert May, 34. “You name any community organization and one or both of them are active members of it.”

They’re both honorary Kentucky Colonels. The mayor’s wife, Timi, 32, a writer for the local weekly Montgomery Times, called them the best-known and respected residents of Mount Sterling, noting that Jane Hawkins was the town’s 1987 Citizen of the Year.

“They’re both outstanding individuals. Mount Sterling is a much better place because of them,” said retired banker John Petro, 67.

Estelle Lee Webb, 54, a Dubois 1949 graduate, was one of many former students who came a long distance. She and her husband, Lenard, drove here from their home in Dayton, Ohio. “We would not have missed this for anything in the world,” said Estelle Webb. “Arthur Hawkins was my professor at Dubois. He steered his kids in the right direction.”

The couple is deeply involved in the town’s Early Child Development Program, the Department of Human Resources and the Montgomery County/Sterling Historical Society. Arthur is vice president of the Historical Society and chairman of the town’s Property Adjustment Board. Jane is secretary of the Early Childhood Development Program.

She’s a member of a committee to establish a Mount Sterling Museum, a volunteer with the local hospital auxiliary, and was instrumental in establishing a 60-bed community nursing home, Windsor Care Center.

Both Hawkins provide transportation to elderly men and women needing rides to doctors, stores or community activities.

“They are always there when someone needs them,” said Opal Shale, 65, president of Mary Child’s Hospital Auxiliary.

Kate Prewitt, 57, a Stanford University graduate who worked as a purser for Pan Am and has lived throughout the world, moved to Mount Sterling with her husband, John, and their children 28 years ago.

“This is a small town with black and white communities,” she said. “We don’t think of them as two communities today. We think of them as one, thanks in a great part to these two wonderful people.”