David Wyant

George Gilliam: So were there any Blacks at Albemarle in the years that you were there?

David Wyant: Yes.  They were there my junior year.  I looked in the annual and saw it, but I remember more of my senior year, and the two seniors.  They became real good friends of mine.  It was one boy and one girl.  And I used to -- another way I made money and everything, and I got my lunch free, was I ran the bookstore at the high school.  I’d drive the athletic bus after school.  But in the mornings, I’d get up there early, and I’d open up the bookstore so you could buy pencils and paper.  And then same thing at the lunch periods.  At a lunch period that they had it, the boy and the girl that were seniors came to there and stood up there at the bookstore with me.  And we talked and we came closer and closer.  The relationship really kind of bonded and formed when the young fellow got cut off the football team.  And I was one of the co-captains.  And when I came in for the two a day practice, the coach gave me keys to his car.  He says, “Take Daniel to wherever he wants to go.”  And I said, “Whoa, what happened?”  And so I got in the car with him.  And I took him up to the Trailway Bus Station there in town.  And we talked on that way over.  And we were really -- he told me he had been cut off the team and everything.  And we became really close and tight.  And then along came the other girl who was a senior, and two of the nicest young people you’ve ever known.  And, years later, finally, when we’d been looking for class reunions, I told my group they had not -- they weren’t as, I guess, aware of them or [want them?].  But I said the two people I really want to see again are Daniel and Madeline.  And I think Daniel has passed away, but Madeline came to one of our class reunions about 15 years ago.  And one of the fellows came into one of our meetings and said, “Hey, I found her.  She’s coming.”  I said, “Oh, that’s great.  I’ll been looking forward to seeing her.”  And she walked in, and her husband was walking behind her coming to the icebreaking night.  And I looked and I had known him for years at the feed store.  He had worked at H.M. Gleason’s and then he went to Southern States.  And he always loaded my feed and everything.  And I said, “I should have known you two nice people were married to each other.”