8/31: First female to play in Div I football

[NyokoOno]

I went to high school with Ashley Martin.

Coincidentally, she was also the homecoming queen, the prom queen, captain of the soccer team, ran track and was a captain of the basketball team.

And also a really really nice person. I played on the soccer team with her and she always had a kind and encouraging word.

Not to mention she could kick the SHIT out of a ball....

On a side note, East Coweta High School (where we both attended) is in a rural, back-country town in Georgia. 1999, the year Ashley graduated (and my Freshman year) was the last year East Coweta conducted a segregated homecoming court.

That's right, people. A ballot for the white homecoming candidates and a ballot for the black homecoming candidates. Also, there happened to be an Asian participant written onto the ballot.

She was asked to come to the front office to pick to be in either the black or the white court. In the yearbook, she ended up with a picture twice the size of everyone else because they just didn't quite know what to do with an "other" ethnicity.

Raised in Union, NJ I was absolutely flabbergasted with this situation, but I do have an interesting piece of history as a conversation piece for my coffee table: my yearbook.

I'll try to upload and send the two segregated pages...