Fraternity touts the importance of education to Portsmouth school

There is no substitute for education, Christopher Mosley told a group of about 60 young men attending I.C. Norcom High.

"It opens doors that no man can close," he said.

Mosley w ould know. He shared the story of his rise from a single-parent household. He went on to attain a higher education and today is president and CEO of Chesapeake Regional Medical Center.

Mosley is also a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the fraternity that visited Norcom on Friday for an annual get-together with the school's young men to encourage them to finish high school and go to college.

The event was sponsored by the fraternity's Portsmouth chapter.

Fraternity members, who came from different professional backgrounds, gave the captive audience - the students in the room had a 2.5 or higher grade point average - a pep talk.

"Some of them don't see people who are engineers and CEOs," Principal Lynn Briley said.

"They read about them, but they need to talk to and touch them."

Theo McClammy, president of Alpha Phi Alpha's Portsmouth chapter, said: "Our members are individuals who have persevered and completed high school and completed college, and we want to share that experience with these young men and encourage them along a similar path."

Norcom's Class of 2009 posted one of the state's highest dropout rates, 27.1 percent. Yet that same class was offered more than $2.4 million in awards and scholarships - nearly a half -million more than was offered to the previous year's class.

During Friday's event, Briley touted the monetary awards and told the young men she hoped Norcom students' offers exceed last year's amount.

Alpha Phi Alpha member Charles H. Washington III, a student at Christopher Newport University, urged the students to look for scholarships as early as their junior year.

"My advice to everyone is to be persistent in whatever you do," he said.

Rashawn Barnes, 17, called the talk "amazing."

He wants to become a musician.

"I heard basically that even if I do not make it doing what

I want to do, keep going on and do something else," Barnes said.

In other words, he said, don't give up.

Cheryl Ross, (757) 446-2443, cheryl.ross@pilotonline.com