VIA to honor former Armstrong star
Fred Jeter | 5/11/2023, 6 p.m.
Native Richmonder Frank J. Smith will be among those inducted into this year’s Virginia Interscholastic Association (VIA) Hall of Fame.
The banquet will be June 23 at the DoubleTree By Hilton in Charlottesville. Smith starred in football and baseball at Armstrong High and later was named MVP of the football team at Hampton Institute (now University).
He has enjoyed a sparkling, nearly half-century career in the financial services industry and is currently the president and CEO of Sphinx Financial Group in Williamsburg.
Other Class of ’23 inductees (and their VIA schools) include:
• Carl B. Jackson, Burley High, Charlottesville
• Eric “Duke” McCaskill, Huntington High, Newport News
•Alvin Puryear, Phenix High, Hampton
• Douglas Smith, Phenix
• Walter “Rock” Greene, Burley
• Thomas Hooker, Southside High, Dinwiddie
• Louis Johnson, Parker-Gray High, Alexandria
• Mary Winston Jackson, Phenix
The VIA was the umbrella organization that governed extracurricular activities for the state’s Black high schools from 1954 to 1969.
Area VIA schools were Armstrong and Maggie Walker in Richmond, Peabody in Petersburg, Carver in Chesterfield, Virginia Randolph in Henrico, Carter Woodson in Hopewell and Gandy in Hanover.
