newsminer.com

The inauguration of Barack Obama Tuesday as President of the United States is a giant step toward opening the “nation’s great vaults of opportunity,” according to the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday banquet in Fairbanks.

Addressing the luncheon Saturday at the Princess Hotel, Sellano Simmons linked the legacy of the civil rights leader to the era that begins this week with the nation’s first black president.

Simmons said there are three keys to unlock the doors of those “vaults” and open them wide for all. The first is education because it is essential to know how to read if you want to achieve.

The second is having good role models to follow and emulate.

At this, he motioned to his grandparents in the audience at the Princess Hotel, Frankie and Charles Jones.

“I have a grandmother and a grandfather who instilled in me principles that can not be shaken,” he said.

The third element is sacrifice. While King declared “I have been to the mountain top,” the civil rights leader knew that the real work occurs not at the peaks of life, but in the valleys, Simmons said.

Simmons said improvements to the nation must come by getting all Americans to accept the challenge that our country represents.

“A new chapter in American history has begun,” he said of the events scheduled for Tuesday in the nation’s capital.

Simmons, who grew up in Fairbanks, earned his law degree from Howard University in 2006. He was the head of the Howard University student government as an undergraduate and a graduate trustee of the school while studying law.

He is now living in Minneapolis, where he and his wife Shameka are raising their two children, Jade and Sellano Jr. Simmons is an associate with the law firm of Dorsey & Whitney.

Also at the luncheon, Johnathan Kenney demonstrated great promise as a orator, delivering excerpts from King’s last speech in 1968 and the first speech delivered by President-elect Obama after the election in November.

Borough Mayor Jim Whitaker and City Mayor Terry Strle issued a proclamation for the occasion.

Whitaker delivered the same short address he gave last summer to the Democratic National Convention about the new president.

The Community Service Awards went to UAF Chancellor Brian Rogers, Frankie and Charles “Jonesy” Jones, Jennifer Schmidt and Tilmon Taylor. Taylor is the new president of the Fairbanks chapter of the NAACP.

Rogers spoke about the vital importance of individual action in changing things for the better, starting on the local level.

The student awards went to Chanmok Jeon, who has been in this country only two-and-a-half years and already is a stellar student at North Pole High School, and Britney Anderson, an outstanding student and athlete at Eielson High School.