“We are Building …  All-Stars!”

In 1975, Brooklyn’s landmark Girls High School of Nostrand and Boys High School on Marcy were merged to form Boys & Girls High School at Fulton Street and Utica Avenue. Now the school is a complex of three same at the same location appropriately called the BGHS Campus, comprising Boys & Girls High School (BGHS); Research and Service High School (RSHS); and the Nelson Mandela School for Social Justice (NMSSJ).

As BGHS Campus community media partner, Our Time Press is proud to present the top academic and athletic stars: seniors
Kayla Bradford and John McCouran (far left) and sophomore
Negusa Walters. Miss Bradford, a cheerleader, is this year›s BGHS
valedictorian, with a 94.74 average. She’s headed to Syracuse
University, this fall. Mr. McCouran, a senior at Research and Service
High School, is ranking third best of graduating seniors, with a 91.75
overall average, while winning highpoints in basketball. Mr. Walters,
a sophomore and whiz on the Boys Indoor Track, Outdoor Track and
Soccer team, is holding down a 91.91 at the same time.

The schools’ missions and philosophies combined, result in unified purpose: preparing each student to achieve their full potential to improve and build their communities. This is done through educators helping them to sharpen their critical skills, arming them with the tools and skills needed to thrive. The three-school complex has moved through some hoops and growing pains, but it is emerging as a success story – chiefly for the unity of its principals to create a community center that feels like a home, without compromise on the learning experience of an academic arena.

The most recent example of all the love and hard work that goes into such a task was the Boys & Girls Campus Athletics Gala on Wednesday, May 29 in the building’s Frank N. Mickens Memorial Gymnasium. All three schools came together for this annual occasion celebrating students in grades 9-12 who have displayed prowess off and on the court.

As BGHS’s community media partner, Our Time Press is proud to present the top academic and athletic stars of The Campus: seniors Kayla Bradford and John McCouran (far right) and sophomore Negusa Walters. Miss Bradford, a cheerleader, is this year’s BGHS valedictorian, with a 94.74 average. She’s headed to Syracuse University, this fall. Mr. McCouran, a senior at Research and Service High School, is ranking third best of graduating seniors, with a 91.75 overall average, while winning highpoints in basketball. Mr. Walters, a sophomore and whiz on the Boys Indoor Track, Outdoor Track and Soccer team, is holding down a 91.91 at the same time.

In addition to Syracuse, the Campus’ senior athletes will attend colleges and universities around this country, including City College, Delaware State University, Kingsborough Community College, SUNY-Cortlandt and Medgar Evers College here in Brooklyn. Applause to Principals Grecian Harrison-Walker (BGHS), Allison Farrington (Research and Service) and Tabari Zaid Bomani (Nelson Mandela School for Social Justice), Athletic Directors Dr. Christopher Smith and Cami Whittingham and Assistant Athletic Director Stephanie Tabertus.

At the highly celebratory affair, Our Time Press met families, support staff, parents, friends, students – and reconnected with Coach Ruth Lovelace, Girls Varsity Handball, school aide Donnie Harris and the vivacious Ms. Lavonne Gaston, parent coordinator. We were reminded that Dr. Smith, assistant principal, Research and Service, received a $500 scholarship from Our Time Press at his 1996 graduation from The High. 

In the coming weeks, Our Time Press will report on the sensational Boys & Girls Campus Athletics Gala, held May 29 in the complex’s Frank N. Mickens Memorial Gymnasium transformed by teachers and administrators into a stellar formal banquet hall (just like the old days). The community’s young trailblazing athletes were honored, but so, too, was The Campus – where success is being achieved, one student at a time.

CAPTION: Raymond Haskins, head coach of the Co-Ed Tennis team, has enjoyed an association with The High’s historic legacy for some four decades. He told Our Time Press, “We are building our tennis team to be one of the finest programs in the City.” And so, Coach Haskin’s comments can be applied to the Campus itself, where leaders are reaching heights on and off the courts, inside and outside the classrooms. Haskins stands with award-winning Boys and Girls H.S. seniors Thania Sultan; Dorian Haynes, left and Quallan Brown.