In 1901, the Colored Industrial and Agricultural School emerged from the desire of African-American farmers in rural, northern Louisiana to educate their children and inspire them to pursue a better life. Now 114 years later, Grambling celebrated the vision of its founder, Charles P. Adams, to help people pursue their dreams of obtaining a college education with a Founder’s Day Convocation on Sept. 29.

Founder’s Day Convocation Speaker Eddie Martin followed his older sister to Grambling State University in 1981 to begin the “start of something special.”

“I arrived at Grambling State University with a pocket full of dreams, a solid foundation of faith and with the idea that one day I am going to get a good job,” Martin said. “During those four years, it took a lot of work and determination. I knew I had in my hand a golden opportunity, and that’s education. Every single day I would study and go to study hall. I worked really hard, because I found out the secret. If you studied and planned, you would be successful.”

Martin is a 1985 honor graduate of GSU with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. He left Grambling with a job as an auditor at Pizza Hut and came back 30 years later as a senior vice president at one of the largest companies in the world, Bank of America. He credits Grambling for laying the foundation for his successful career.

“Mr. Adams said I have a dream,” Martin said. “I’m going to build a university in north Louisiana, so that anybody who walks through those doors will have an opportunity. This is the greatest university where everybody is somebody.”

President Willie Larkin began a new Founder’s Day tradition to inspire the students at Grambling to complete their education. All of the freshmen received a 2019 tassel as they walked across the stage of T.H. Harris Auditorium. The tassel symbolizes a commitment for these students to graduate in 2019.

“I am giving you this tassel, which represents your graduation in 2019,” Larkin said. “I am betting that you are going to honor this contract that we are going to extend to you this morning. In 2019, you will move off the stage and you will enter into not only a job, but a career or a graduate school, and you will represent this university well. This is my commitment to you.”