Peninsula In Passage

Tom McLemore, principal of Nansemond River High School, started his career in Suffolk as a coach and teacher under Whitley at Yeates and remembers – Billy Whitley was the principal at Yeates so long he knew everyone and there was a lot of tradition there. He taught me a lot of lessons – especially that you can’t run a school from the office, got to be out there with the kids. I remember him collecting coins from the vending machine and bringing the can of coins back into the office and saying ‘This is school finance.’” “We were teachers but we were fair,” Whitley says. “But I wouldn’t survive today – if you even look at a kid wrong you open yourself to a lawsuit.” “The Yeates athletic teams had been called the Rebels until integration,” he says. “And then we changed to the Chargers.” “We are both rebels and chargers,” Johnson says about herself and Whitley. They both stayed at Yeates until Nansemond River High School opened and Yeates was converted to a middle school with Talmadge Darden at the helm as principal. Kevin Alston

Bennett’s Creek was the only home Kevin Alston, Assistant Superintendent of Suffolk Public Schools, knew until after he graduated from James Madison University. His family had eight acres off Knott’s Neck Road where they raised goats, sheep, and cows and according to Alston, every bird known to man - peacocks, pheasants, quail, and a pet cardinal - and a pet skunk named “Petunia.” “Not a whole lot of folks were here when my parents moved there in 1950,” Alston says. “My oldest sister was 4 and if she saw headlights on the dirt road that was Knott’s Neck she’d get so excited that she’d run back and forth through the house thinking company was coming.” Alston’s father, Luther, was the son of a wealthy North Carolina farmer who also ran a general store and minted his own money for his farm hands to use in his store. When the farmer/storekeeper died his property was foreclosed and the family turned out of their home. They were allowed a single milk cow since there was a child in the family. Luther and his mother left on foot and made their way to Cradock to find work in the shipyard. In Cradock Luther Alston met Marjorie Remington who lived next door. When he joined the Army Air Corps (he was a sergeant), she joined the WACs (she made captain) hoping to catch up with Luther. They were married in uniform in Cradock in December 1945. When he was discharged he worked in the shipyard and kept a two-acre garden. In 1950 they bought the land in Bennett’s Creek from someone who had bought it from J. C. Matthews. Luther Alston became known as the “Birdman of Bennett’s Creek.”

Kevin Alston with coins his grandfather minted

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