Schools consider new names for more athletics facilities: Jarman remembered as iconic sports fan

A road that paves the entrance to Farmville Central High School will be named Donald Reid Way in honor of one of FCHS’ graduates and coaches if school officials approve nearly a half dozen renaming requests next month.

Pitt County Schools Director of Athletics Rob Maloney brought the requests, which also included renaming Farmville gym and basketball court and Ayden-Grifton’s football pressbox, to a Pitt County Board of Education work session on Monday.

Maloney, who in January approached the board about naming the gym floor at A.G. Cox Middle School in honor of coach Debbie Keel, said the school district later received the additional naming requests for FCHS and Ayden-Grifton High School. According to PCS policy, all requests to name school property or facilities require approval of the Board of Education.

Ayden-Grifton Principal Kasey Hyatt has proposed that the school’s football press box be named in honor of Charles Mitchell for his service to the school and its athletics programs. Mitchell, a longtime booster club president, also has served on the board of the Community Foundation, which has provided letter jackets at no cost to more than 1,000 of the school’s student-athletes.

“His tireless efforts and outstanding achievements have left an indelible mark on our organization and the community we serve,” Hyatt said in a letter.

Maloney also presented letters from former FCHS principal Charles Long and the school’s former football coach and athletics director Dixon Sauls, both requesting that the school’s gymnasium be named in honor of former coaches Mike Terrell and the late Hilda Worthington. The proposed name for the facility is Worthington-Terrell Gymnasium.

“Coach Worthington was one of the female pioneers in female athletics, not only in Farmville but throughout the state of North Carolina,” Maloney said of the former basketball and track coach, who became one of the first women in the state to serve as a high school athletics director. “We would would do this in her memory.”

Terrell, who coached boys’ basketball at FCHS for two decades, recorded more than 350 victories, including three state championships, Sauls wrote to District 4 school board representative Don Rhodes. His letter also requested that the gym floor be named in honor of current FCHS boys’ basketball coach Larry Williford, whose teams have won more than 450 games and five state championships in his 24-year tenure.

“This has not just happened recently,” Rhodes said of the FCHS naming requests. “It’s been talked about for years now. … There’s no doubt that the community wants this.

“I can’t think of three finer folks,” Rhodes said. “There’s not small many high schools in the state of North Carolina that have three hall of famers, and there will be a fourth one soon when Larry retires.”

Williford requested the street naming in honor of Reid, who played football at FCHS and ECU. In his letter, Williford wrote that although Reid has retired due to health concerns, he continues to coach the school’s junior varsity basketball team.

The board is scheduled to vote on the naming requests at its March 5 meeting. If approved, the naming of these facilities will be the eighth in less than two years. In 2022, Elmhurst Elementary School’s gym was in honor of former principal Colleen Burt, and South Central High School’s basketball court was named in honor of Athletics Director and longtime basketball coach Chris Cherry.

Last year, the floor of D.H. Conley High School’s basketball court was renamed in honor of Maloney, who taught and coached at the school for more than two decades.