RCS Head Start Gets Grant from Chisholm Estate

By: Addison Penfield

8/28/2008

ASHEBORO—Regional Consolidated Services (RCS) of Asheboro and the agency’s Head Start Program are the recipients of a $550 grant from a man once lauded by RCS founder and executive director, Janice Scarborough, for his extraordinary support.

            Patti Horan, director of Head Start for the non-profit organization, announced that the grant which was received earlier this month came from the estate of the late Robert L. Cheatham, an Asheboro resident known for his civic-mindedness.

            Cheatham developed a keen interest in and affection for the preschool children who attended Head Start classes in Randolph County. As an active member of the Randolph Golden K Kiwanis Club of Asheboro, he spearheaded a club project aimed directly at the cultivation of good reading habits among the youngsters.

            Cheatham would regularly organize member groups to visit Head Start classrooms at the Connie Redding Preschool Building in Asheboro and Head Start Station in Ramseur and to read children’s books aloud. He fostered Golden K’s annual donation to RCS, earmarked for the purchase of books made available by the national Reading Is Fun (RIF) program.

            Scarborough once saluted Cheatham publicly as a man “forever in the forefront.”

            “The children loved him,” she said. “and RCS has had no greater, more generous friend.”

            A veteran of World War II and survivor of bitter months as a prisoner of war, Cheatham was ever active in veteran’s affairs and was a prime mover in organizing the military honor guard in Randolph County.

            Regional Consolidated Services is a private human services agency serving Randolph County and ten other Piedmont counties in North Carolina. It was founded in 1979.