Bringing Out the Greatness in Our Youth
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| Anthony Alexander oversees theater programming at the Reid Center. Photo: Urban News |
Staff reports
After graduating from Asheville High School, Anthony Alexander attended N. C. State until a family crisis cut short his education. But he was determined to succeed. While working as a Training Manager at the McDonald’s store in Biltmore, he enrolled at UNC-Asheville and earned a degree in Business Administration in 1993. For the next 14 years he was a Training Manager responsible for training McDonald’s store managers in North and South Carolina and Georgia.
In 2004, Anthony took a sabbatical to pursue his passion: writing.
He volunteered as an after-school tutor with the Asheville Parks &
Recreation department Cultural Arts program at the Stephens-Lee and W.
C. Reid Centers. Two years later, the city hired him to oversee theater
programming at Reid Center, where he has presented What Do We Do Now
about teen pregnancy, Tough Love, about family issues, Street Corner
Blues, dealing with the King assassination, and the anti-stereotype
Death of the “N” Word.
Anthony says, “I was gone for 14 years and never came back to
this side of town and the Erskine neighborhood” [where he grew up]. “I
vowed that I would never step foot back into the projects once I got
out of there! But, by an odd twist of fate I’m now employed in the
area, and moved into the same housing complex as a resident.”
He notes that he attended Reid Center programs as a youth. “The
reason I’m here and do the job that I do is because of youth living
with some of the same life situations I grew up having to deal with. I
want to reach back and be instrumental in the development and growth of
our youth in the housing complexes throughout Asheville. They can
succeed in any endeavor with faith and discipline. My message to young
African-American is: To dream of greatness is great; but to make
greatness a reality is even greater,” said Anthony.
Alexander is also founder of “Tar-Heels,” a nonprofit youth
basketball league that travels around NC and Tennessee teaching
discipline, life-skills, and sportsmanship.
