06-09-2024 HOF - Flipbook - Page 35
Baltimore Sun Media | Sunday, June 9, 2024
ALETHIA B. STARKE
T
his is how Alethia B. Starke introduced herself to a high school student
whom she has decided to push, prod, cajole — and move heaven and
earth for — until the girl enrolls in college:
“God loves you and has given you something inside of you to help you
decide what you want to contribute to this world,” Starke, 83, began,
peering down through her glasses at a teen who suddenly finds herself
sitting straighter in her chair. “You have got a lot to offer, starting with
that smile you are going to give me right now. Then we are going to talk about how you would
like to help people.”
Over more than four decades as a high school guidance counselor, Starke obtained a total of $2.5
million in college scholarships for more than 1,200 students in the Baltimore City Public Schools,
primarily at Patterson High School and Baltimore Polytechnic Institute, though not exclusively.
That’s 1,200 people who, thanks in part to Starke, are now doctors, plumbers, lawyers, teachers, mechanics and musicians. If everyone Starke has helped obtain an education got together
to form their own town, it would be larger than 40% of
Name: Alethia B. Starke
Age: 83
Hometown: Charleston, South
Carolina
Current residence: Stevenson
Education: South Carolina State
University, B.A.; Wayne State
University, M.A.
Career highlights: Executive
director of The Carter School of
Music at the New Shiloh Baptist
Church; guidance counselor,
Patterson High School and
Baltimore Polytechnic Institute
Civic and charitable activities:
Member, President’s Committee
for the Morgan State University
Choir; deacon, New Shiloh Baptist
Church; president, Nathan
Carter Foundation; food prep,
The Sharing Table food pantry in
Edgewood
Family: Married to William Starke;
three brothers; 29 nieces and
nephews
the municipalities in Maryland.
Starke gets those scholarships through a combination
of hard work and intuition, and by systematically overcoming the obstacles to each student’s success.
If a promising senior needs to improve her vocabulary, Starke will buy her a dictionary. If a kid is distracted
because he doesn’t know where his next meal is coming
from, Starke will produce a bag of groceries. If a teen is
considering a career in public relations or medicine,
Starke will introduce them to experts in the field.
“That’s the kind of effort she puts into it,” said Wanda
Q. Draper, a retired cultural leader and public affairs
executive who has worked with Starke for years.
“Alethia is a force to be reckoned with. She is so caring
and compassionate, but she sets standards for the young
people she works with, and she lets them know what
her expectations are.”
And Starke isn’t done yet.
Technically, Starke has
been retired since she
left Poly in 2005. In reality, “retired” means she no
longer is paid a salary for
working around the clock.
She remains dean and
executive director of New
Shiloh Baptist Church’s
Carter School of Music, a
position she has held since
the school started in 1994,
and for which she receives a
stipend. The Carter School
provides classical music
education to students of all
ages at little to no cost.
“She does a herculean job,”
said New Shiloh’s pastor,
Harold A. Carter Jr.
“For all intents and
purposes she has carried the
entire weight of the Carter
School of Music on her shoulders for 34 years. This is not
the Peabody Conservatory. It
is an inner-city music school
thatservesaprimarilyAfrican
American community.
“As my father used to say,
‘Alethia makes the school
hum.'”
Starke also is a deacon in
thechurch,cooksmealstwice
monthly for a food pantry in
Harford County, is president
of the Nathan Carter Foundation,forwhichshewasinstrumental in raising $500,000,
and for 35 years has raised
money for the renowned
Morgan State University
Choir.
“What I like about kids
is that they are resilient,”
Starke said. “If you get them
early enough and hold on to
them and see them through a
rough period, they can make
it through.”
Starke grew up in Charles-
ton, South Carolina, the
seventh of eight children. Her
father was a Baptist pastor
and her mother was a schoolteacher. It was at her family’s
dining room table, starting
when she was 4, where young
Alethia absorbed many of the
guiding principles she relies
on today.
“My parents had expectations of us,” Starke recalls.
“We had regular family
conferences, where they
told us: ‘Everyone in this
house is going to get a college
degree.'”
Starke’s parents gave each
of their children $1 a week for
allowance, with 10 cents set
aside for the church collection box. And in an inspired
stroke, they assigned each
of their older children a
younger sibling to mentor.
It was a way to ensure that
the family remained close,
and it worked. Starke recalls
that when she was in college,
her two eldest brothers told
her, “If you need something,
don’t bother Momma. Come
to us instead.”
Starke didn’t have a
younger sibling to mentor.
Instead, she devoted her
career to mentoring 1,200
high school students. As
recently as six months ago,
Starke obtained a scholarship
to Morgan for a promising
singer who was supporting herself by working in a
beauty salon.
“She called me the other
day,” Starke said, “and told
me, ‘I’m here because of you.
I will never forget what you
have done for me.'”
Make that 1,201.
— Mary Carole McCauley
35