Trumbo, the first black teacher hired in the Danville schools after integration, was named Teacher of the Year for the school system in 2005. He taught 33 years and is married to his high school sweetheart, Doris Kinley.
Trumbo says, "If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living shall not be in vain."
Becker says Allen, who owns car dealerships in Danville, Liberty and Frankfort, is one of the school system's most reliable boosters.
"Most people know him by how much he supports the athletic program but he's always been an across the board supporter of the school system. We always can count on him to help us with his programs."
Distinguished alumni are: brothers Chris, Mack, Elmer, and John Jackson, Helen Fisher Frye, John Stigall, Gigi Biles and Bob Southerlan.
* A 1938 graduate of Bate High School, Helen Fisher Frye served as librarian for many years of her 42-year teaching career. She retired in 1980. She has been a community leader, holding the post of president of the local NAACP during the Civil Rights era. She organized youth sit-ins at Danville lunch counters. She was the first chairwoman of the Danville Human Rights Commission, an organization instrumental in integrating public housing and theaters. At her church, she was president of an organization that worked to integrate the Centre College Concert Series.
In her personal life, she was the first black person to receive a master's degree in library science at the University of Kentucky. At Centre College, she was the first black person to enroll. She was the first and still the only black person to receive the Ida Willis Medal, which was given for serving on the Kentucky State Heritage Council and the restoration of the Doram Sledd House on East Green Street in Danville.
Frye attributes her actions to "faith in God and her home training by her role model, her mother."
* The salutatorian of Danville High School's class of 1952, Virginia Ragland Graham Biles, better known as "Gigi," has been instrumental in shaping the Danville Schools Alumni Association. She served as co-chairman of the program during its first two years.
In addition to her work as an educator, Biles is known as an actress and director and a children's book author.
She taught at Danville High School from 1974 until her 1995 retirement. She covered English, speech, drama, creative writing and journalism. She is co-creator of the "Back to Walden" program that began in 1985 and still gives Danville High students a taste of Thoreau's life at Walden Pond. She is winner of two Admiral Awards from the Board of Education and Teacher of the Year in 1986-87.
In addition to her teaching career, Biles has been active in many theater productions at West. T. Hill Community Theater. She now is a published author of several children's books.
The mother of three children, Biles says, "Of all my accomplishments, my children, Ginny, Buck and Monty, are my greatest pride and joy.
"When I graduated from DHS, my classmates elected me Most Likely to Succeed and I believe that through my three children, and the hundreds I have taught over the years, I have been most successful."
* After graduating from Danville High in 1952, Dr. Chris Jackson Jr. became a surgeon. He has practiced in Danville for 35 years except for two years he spent in the Navy. He serves as chief of staff and chief of surgery at Ephraim McDowell Regional Memorial Hospital and for many years has been director of McDowell Home Health.
Many athletes have received his services as he has been team doctor for Danville High and Boyle County High in the past.
At Centre College, he is a member of the class of 1956. In 1959, he graduated with honors from the University of Louisville School of Medicine.
He completed a general surgical residency at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami in 1964.
* A member of the class of 1955, the late Dr. William Mack Jackson, who practiced 36 years in Danville, is known for his commitment to athletics and nature.
He and his wife, Gerry, turned their farm into a nature habitat and created a 500-meter cross country course on their land that was open to all runners.
