Legends can be found living in nearly every community though they often don’t receive the recognition they deserve until after they’ve died.

Raleigh County National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) President Barbara Charles said their annual Living Legend Award takes a stride toward changing that.

“We need living legends that individuals can sit down and they can have a conversation with,” Charles said. “It is to let people know that among us, there are people that are still living that are legends and moving forward with our individual ideas and thoughts of progress within our schools and homes and community. And they stand as that statue of what’s going on in our community.”

This year, the 2023 Living Legend Award will go to two retired teachers who have been married for going on 53 years, Joyce and Thomas Parham.

To honor the recipients of the 2023 Living Legend Award, a brunch and award ceremony will take place at 10 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 25, at the Beckley Woman’s Club at 202 Park Ave. in Beckley.

Those who would like to attend should call 304-237-6018 to RSVP. There is no fee to attend, and everyone is welcome, Charles said.

She added that anyone interested in becoming a member of the NACCP can also call 304-237-6018 to get membership information.

Joyce said they are both honored to be receiving the award.

“I just want to thank the NAACP for thinking that we would be worthy of such an award, and we will continue to try to be worthy and please God,” Joyce said.

“And live up to that expectation,” Thomas added.

Joyce, of Mercer County, and Thomas, of Wyoming County, met while attending college at Bluefield State, where they both sought to become educators – Thomas a biology teacher and Joyce a reading specialist for elementary students.

Combined, Joyce and Thomas have more than 50 years of experience teaching in West Virginia schools.

While the two taught different subjects, they both had the same goal as educators – giving students the tools they need to be successful in life.

“I was a reading specialist for 30 years, and it makes my heart feel great when a child actually realized that they have the capability of learning how to read,” she said.

Thomas also spent a few decades as a teacher as well as a coach. In 2017, the baseball field at Woodrow Wilson High School, where Thomas taught and coached baseball for 26 years, was renamed in his honor.

Although it’s difficult to remember all the students they’ve had over the years, one who sticks out to Joyce and Thomas was a little girl who was their neighbor when they lived in Wyoming County.

Joyce said the little girl was in her first-grade class and, when she started in her class, did not know how to read.

“I had kids who didn’t even really know their ABCs,” she said. “And that was my biggest thing I wanted – and I would stay up sometimes late at night working and thinking of things to do, that would help them learn to read and enjoy reading.”

Joyce and Thomas said they both remember the day their young neighbor learned to read.

“She came home one day, and she got off the bus running to me and said, ‘I can read, I can read, I can read,’” Thomas said. “And that little girl sat there, and she read … I’ve always gotten the newspaper, and she read every word in the newspaper she could find to read.”

The couple said they feel privileged to have been part of something so important as a child’s education.

“I thank the Lord that we’re still here and able to contribute to something as vital as our children,” Thomas said. “As I taught school, my theme to all my children was hopeful that they would grow up and be productive members of society. And we’re still fulfilling that.”

Joyce and Thomas, both lifelong members of the NAACP, said they still work to find ways to contribute to the children in their community.

Joyce said she is a member of the Beta Lambda Omega Chapter of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority, a service organization which supports Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) as well as a number of other organizations.

During Covid, Joyce said her sorority helped organize vaccination clinics and provide help to struggling families affected by the pandemic.

Both are also members of BEAUTY, which stands for Black Educators Are United Totally, Yes!, which was established in 2018 and gives scholarships to local students.

Each year BEAUTY gives out two $2,000 scholarships, the Juanita Parham Memorial Scholarship and the Thomas Parham Jr. Memorial Scholarship, which were named for Thomas’ sister-in-law as well as Thomas and Joyce’s son, also names Thomas, who died in 2021 after battling brain cancer.

As long-time Raleigh County teachers, Thomas said they still run into former students who remember being taught by one or both of them.

“It does my heart good when we go out and we see students that are successful and contributing to society,” he said. “That’s what it’s all about.”