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2009 Award Recipients
Coachman Award recipient Raphael Solawon
Benson Award recipient Olubukola Babalola
Benson Award recipient Joseph Godfrey
Brady Award recipient Martha Ofeibea-Tenkorang
Hardge Award recipient Ahyieh Mansue
King Award recipient Sheena Gonsalves
Truth Award recipient Catalina Gomez
Gould Award recipient Gessie Belizaire
Taylor Award recipient, The Underground Railroad
Turner Award recipient Brandy Derogene
Gibson Award recipient Chinyere Okpara
Robinson Award recipient Jeffry Martins
Robinson Award recipients Kaheim Seawright (L) and Jason Francis (R), with Gibson Award recipient TyLynn Graham
Gibson Award recipient Ashley Roberson
2009 Onyx Senior Honor Society Class
Distinguished Service Award
Dr. Cynthia Hamilton, Former Director of the
African and African-American Studies Program
Keynote Speaker
Keynote Speaker and Taylor Award recipient Hon. Elizabeth H. Roberts, Lieutenant Governor of RI, with Dr. Donald Cunnigen
She earned a bachelor's degree from URI in 1973, and an M.D. from Brown University Medical School in 1984. Before her death at a young age from cancer, she was a staff physician in radiation oncology at Roger Williams Medical Center and a clinical instructor at Brown University. As a recipient of the American Cancer Society's Clinical Oncology Award, she specialized in radiation therapy for locally advanced prostate cancer and in combined modality treatment with chemotherapy in locally advanced head, neck, and pancreatic cancers.
His great-grandfather (also William Gould) escaped slavery in 1862 by rowing to a Union gunboat patrolling off the coast of Wilmington, NC. William Gould IV (Class of '58), has written a book about this and other exploits. 
He was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, 
He was the first Black graduate of the University of Rhode Island in 1914. He majored in civil engineering and was a member of the football and track teams. The 1936 alumni directory listed his occupation an assistant treasurer of Prairie View State College in Texas.
Estes Arnathia Benson (1956-1997) was a cum laude graduate in the class of 1978 at the University of Rhode Island. At the University, he starred in football. He received the Fifth Quarter Club Scholar Athlete Award. He was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. After graduating, he studied at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Subsequently, he received a Master of Business Administration from Vanderbilt University.
Believing that work and travel were essential to his pursuit of knowledge; Estes spent a year in Israel on a kibbutz; a year in the Gulf of Mexico on an oil rig; and several years in various management positions in a variety of businesses, including providing affordable housing for inner-city residents.
An actor and writer, he appeared in University productions, New York City Showcase Theatre, and Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities Legacy Series. He was the author of the Legacy drama, “Fighting to be American: Rhode Islander in the Civil War." As a volunteer throughout New England, he presented educational activities on drug and alcohol abuse to young people.
