Anthony Alexander oversees theater programming at the Reid Center.  Photo: Urban News

Staff reports

After graduating from Asheville High School, Anthony Alexander attended N. C. State until a family crisis cut short his education. But he was determined to succeed. While working as a Training Manager at the McDonald’s store in Biltmore, he enrolled at UNC-Asheville and earned a degree in Business Administration in 1993. For the next 14 years he was a Training Manager responsible for training McDonald’s store managers in North and South Carolina and Georgia.

In 2004, Anthony took a sabbatical to pursue his passion: writing. He volunteered as an after-school tutor with the Asheville Parks & Recreation department Cultural Arts program at the Stephens-Lee and W. C. Reid Centers. Two years later, the city hired him to oversee theater programming at Reid Center, where he has presented What Do We Do Now about teen pregnancy, Tough Love, about family issues, Street Corner Blues, dealing with the King assassination, and the anti-stereotype Death of the “N” Word.

Anthony says, “I was gone for 14 years and never came back to this side of town and the Erskine neighborhood” [where he grew up]. “I vowed that I would never step foot back into the projects once I got out of there! But, by an odd twist of fate I’m now employed in the area, and moved into the same housing complex as a resident.”

He notes that he attended Reid Center programs as a youth. “The reason I’m here and do the job that I do is because of youth living with some of the same life situations I grew up having to deal with. I want to reach back and be instrumental in the development and growth of our youth in the housing complexes throughout Asheville. They can succeed in any endeavor with faith and discipline. My message to young African-American is: To dream of greatness is great; but to make greatness a reality is even greater,” said Anthony.