Hundreds of attendees gathered Wednesday at Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center in Longview to recognize Unity Honors recipients NaTusha Howard and Jerry Gardner.
According to the city, the Unity Honors “recognizes residents who have demonstrated leadership in promoting unity, mutual understanding and social justice.”
The city’s Partners in Prevention’s Unity and Diversity Committee announced previously that Howard and Gardner had been selected for the lifetime achievement award.
A video showed Howard’s background, including her time as a cheerleader and athlete and her eventual transition into theater after a back injury.
A Longview native, Howard graduated from Pine Tree High School in 1991 and has worked in the nonprofit world for many years. She went to Panola College and then Prairie View A&M University and has a master’s degree in theater from the California Institute of the Arts. She has served as executive director of Newgate Mission since February 2021.
Family, friends and former colleagues spoke Wednesday of their experiences knowing and working with Howard.
In the video, Longview police officer Misty Ryan recalled the significance of Howard’s tenure with the Longview Teen Court.
“Being a black female, she had to help with the younger black male and black female kids, the younger generations, the teenagers, that were going through different things that you know, maybe myself or somebody else wouldn’t understand what they were going through and their home life,” Ryan said.
Howard said her parents taught her a sense of acceptance and to treat others with love and kindness. In the video, she recalled an incident that stuck with her growing up.
“I remember a time when I got a leading role on the main stage at high school, and some of the community didn’t support that,” Howard said in the video. “And so we got death threats. I had this awesome set of adults — they were white, Black and Hispanic, and every day one of them walked me to my parents’ car.
“They rallied around me to support what I was doing and to make sure that I was safe and I never felt uneasy, you know. I see one or two of them today, and they’re like, ‘Do you remember me?’ And I remember them immediately,” Howard said.
Howard received a standing ovation when she took the stage to accept her award. She told the crowd how grateful, honored and humbled she was and thanked God for the doors He has opened and for blessing her to meet so many “beautiful, kind, wonderful people.”
A second video detailed Gardner’s upbringing, including how he started working at age 12 at a furniture store in Arkansas and later graduated in 1964 from the University of Arkansas .
He is a board member at Newgate Mission and started a Christmas Angel Tree program 31 years ago when he was a manager at Havertys Furniture in Longview.
Gardner and his wife, Nan, have three children and five grandchildren.
His friends and colleagues of voiced their support for him in the video.
“I consider Jerry probably one of God’s special servants,” Bob Maness said.
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Howard appeared in his video to express her love and gratitude for Gardner and to thank him for letting her be part of the Newgate team.
The video ended with Gardner sharing a quote from Elbert Hubbard: “The greatest mistake that you can make in life is to fear making a mistake.”
As he accepted his award, Gardner thanked his family, friends and everyone who spoke in his video.
“I think the most important thing is to remember that it all comes from above,” he said while pointing upward. “It’s not me; it’s Him working through me, and I give Him all the praise and all the glory. I don’t want the praise, I don’t want the glory. I wanna give it all to Him.”
After the ceremony, Gardner said he had prepared what to say before going on stage, but when the time finally came, “Wham!”
“All this hits you and I’m sitting here thinking about the things I need to talk about and the things I need to say. ... It’s really overwhelming,” he said with a chuckle.
Also Wednesday, two local entities — Eastman Chemical Co. — Texas Operations and The Rotary Club of Longview — received a special recognition award.
