Remembering Jerome Ellington
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For many, the Memorial Day weekend means the official start of summer but for one Jackson family it means the start of something much more. It is the start of a scholarship for soon-to-be Lane College students. Jerome Ellington, a former Lane College student, was shot to death outside a Jackson bowling alley in 2009, and now his friends and family want his legacy to live on. As a cool breeze hits Paul Thacker’s face, he remembers a young man he had the privilege of knowing for more than a decade. Thacker says, “Whatever Ellington put his mind to, he stayed with it, stuck to it.” Ellington would have been 22-years-old on Saturday. Family members say gang violence or not, the word that comes to their minds when they think about Ellington is perseverance. That is why they recently started a scholarship in his name. Thacker adds, “Everything about him produces that, produces a student and a person who believed in his city, who believed in his school, Jackson-Central Merry and Lane College, and he wanted people to make it.” Ellington graduated from JCM, then Dyersburg State, but he always had his eye on playing basketball for Lane College. It was a goal he nearly reached before his life was taken. Thacker says, “Since he can’t attend now, we’re going to make it possible for other students to go to Lane because be would have wanted that.” The Ellington’s already have about $1,000 in the Jerome Ellington Perseverance Scholarship Fund, and starting next year they will be giving it to one JCM grad who plans to attend Lane College. Thacker adds, “He was a natural born leader.” The Ellington’s hope the annual scholarship will be anywhere from $1-5,000.
