Members of the Sarah Keys Evans Planning Committee will honor the 2026 Trailblazer recipients Saturday at 5 p.m.

The seventh annual event will be held in the Dr. Ervin V. Griffin Sr. Centre on the campus of Halifax Community College in Weldon.

The SKE Committee will provide guided tours of the Sarah Keys Evans Plaza located in the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Park on Virginia Avenue and Wyche Street in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina immediately after the program.  

This year, the committee will acknowledge the following 2026 Sarah Keys Evans Trailblazer recipients.  

“These individuals and organizations have worked and dedicated their lives for the betterment of life, social justice, peace, and equality in the Roanoke Valley Area of North Carolina and beyond,” organizers said.

The recipients are as follows: Zenobia Cofield, David Beard, Esq., Judge Cy A. Grant Sr. Judge W. Rob Lewis II, and theJudge Takiya Lewis Blalock. 

The 2026 Sarah Keys Evans Young Trailblazer Award recipient is KyJuan Faison Mobley, mayor of Garysburg.  

The 2026 Sarah Keys Evans Safe Harbor Award will be posthumously presented to Chester B. Williams, founder and chief empowerment officer of a Better Place, A Better Chance. His mother Maybell William will accept the award in his honor.  

The 2026 Sarah Keys Evans Fortitude and Valor Award recipient is House District 27 state Representative Rodney D. Pierce.

Mrs. Julia Graves, niece of Sarah Keys Evans, will provide closing expressions and words of gratitude from the family. 

Ervin V. Griffin Sr. will provide the closing remarks and the SKE member Reverend Chris Mallory will provide the closing prayer for the program.

The Sarah Keys Evans Plaza was unveiled on August 1, 2021, and 68 years from the date . Keys was jailed for not giving up her seat to a White marine in Roanoke Rapids.  

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