Mayor Jones inspires Community High students

Combine the power of hope and the spirit of social justice, and there's nothing you can't accomplish, Mayor Dwight C. Jones told students at Richmond Community High School yesterday.

Jones, the featured speaker during the school's Black History Month program, offered the students some insight on life as the mayor but mostly stuck to a theme of the power -- and necessity -- of youthful ambition.

"You've got to have great dreams and great expectations," he said.

He recounted his story of reaching Virginia Union University "more years ago than I care to recall" in need of remedial help in the classroom, and how he made it from that low to highs in politics and the pulpit.

"I still pinch myself," he said about becoming mayor, "because I never thought that would be me."

He said he did the same when he was elected as a state delegate and realized he was working in a place once inhabited by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.

"It doesn't matter where you start," he said. "It matters where you intend to end."

The message quickly sank in with the students.

"It's very inspirational," said senior Jonathan Mark. "We want to be part of something big. He's encouraging us to work even harder."

Junior Kalyne Coleman, too, said the mayor was inspirational.

"It made me want to do better," she said.

Jones said early academic struggles aside, he never had any doubt about the direction he'd take.

"I was never confused about what I wanted to be," he said after being asked of his childhood ambitions. "I'm a fourth-generation minister. My course was set."

For those in the crowd without that certainty, Jones said, the important thing to remember was to not discount any choice.

"No matter how difficult our struggle has been, we are blessed to live in a land where anything is possible," he said.

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .