PALMETTO — Vanzetta Goff Evans thrived on competition during her days at Lincoln Memorial High School.
So when teachers selected her to represent Manatee County’s all-black school in the district spelling competition in 1961, she wasn’t going to disappoint.
“I’d go in the library on my free period and sit with the librarian and do spelling drills,” recalls Evans, 65. “I remember she had these 11 1/2-by-14-inch pages with words on it to study. She would ask me the words and I’d sit there and spell.”
Evans wasn’t going to lose this spelling competition. No way. Not in her senior year. Not while representing Lincoln Memorial High. And certainly not with so many teachers and staff who supported her and believed in her.
Needless to say, Evans won that district spelling competition. She was also crowned the state typing champion and class queen in 1961. But Evans says she and many other Lincoln Memorial High graduates won so much more in life, thanks to the school: education, successful careers and life lessons.
Alumni of Lincoln Memorial High remember the storied black school as an educational institution with a superior focus on academics, run by teachers who instilled inspiration and discipline in students during the difficult years of segregation.
Founded in 1949, Lincoln closed its doors in 1969 as schools were integrated. While it’s been 40 years since the Palmetto school shut down, the institution’s legacy continues to live on today through the success of its alumni.
Walton Hunter, for instance, was the first in his family to go to college. The 1961 graduate of Lincoln Memorial earned a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from Tennessee State.
“I realized how blessed I was,” Hunter says today.
And he’s had plenty of accomplishments since graduating from Tennessee State, including a 30-year career at Honeywell, where he served as an electrical engineer and retired in 2000 as a senior project engineer. As a retiree, the Lauderhill resident volunteers as a tutor at Broward County schools and his church.
“I try to use my education to help other people,” says Hunter, 66. “I just want to give back to society, because a lot of kids don’t realize they have the potential.”
As a Lincoln Memorial graduate, Hunter considers himself blessed for another reason. High school sweethearts Walton and Joann Hunter celebrated their 39th anniversary this fall.
Joann Hunter, a 1963 graduate of Lincoln, also spends her time in the school system of Broward County. She’s a teacher’s assistant at Lauderhill Turner Elementary, working with students with low-level reading skills.
Hunter enjoys being there for students who most need the help, just like Lincoln Memorial teachers were there for Palmetto students.
“They were very caring and they gave us a lot of one-on-one attention,” Joann Hunter says. “They were really there for us being that it was an all-black school.”
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