Ferguson Township interim manager appointment shows results of hard work, culture of change
When I walked into the main courtroom in the courthouse in Bellefonte for the first time, I couldn’t help but think about the inequities that must have occurred in that room. Every presiding judge is prominently displayed on all walls of the room, and they are all white males expect for the current one. Every administration building in every municipality in the area looks just like this.
On Tuesday, Centrice Martin was named the interim manager of Ferguson Township. She is the first African American to be a manager of a borough or township in Centre County. This may seem like a rather minor event to some, and thrown into a long list of just positive changes that have occurred in the Centre Region recently. I know I’m bias as I say Centrice has earned this interim role; she works countless hours to help advance the initiatives, projects and leadership within Ferguson Township. She outperformed her assistant to the manager role and was named assistant township manager of Ferguson Township in 2021.
The Centre Region has seen the diversity of its elected officials change greatly in the last election, and representation of minorities is higher than it has ever been. I’m proud of Centrice and to say she is my wife and my partner in raising four wonderful children.
I can speak at length about her wonderful achievements as a professional and the struggles she has faced to achieve her goals. Centrice graduated from Penn State with a bachelor’s degree in agribusiness management and a master’s degree in applied youth, family and community education.
When her oldest daughter was just 3 or maybe 4 years old, Centrice was working as a cashier at the Uni-Mart in Ferguson Township during the day when she started attending Penn State evening classes on a probationary basis in 2005. Even though Centrice had little to no financial or emotional support, she knew that for her, education, training, support and encouragement was key to get out of the social and economical disadvantage situation she had been living. She says she just felt in her heart that, for her, she needed an education and more training and understanding to step forward for any meaningful, sustainable change to her and her daughter’s life.
Centrice is a rising star and the kids and I are lucky to hear to the stories as she shared them. The most inspiring part in her academic story, and told to our two youngest children, is that Centrice was awarded the Penn State Outstanding Adult Student Award. Apparently the strength of a Nittany Lion is contagious because our youngest daughter insists she’s going to be a Nittany Lion like her mommy.
In essence, people like Centrice work hard to earn and advance into leadership roles and continue to represent change and serve as an example as how change can happen at the individual level.
It is also acknowledged that change can happen outside an organization, but change becomes part of the culture of an organization when it happens within. Centrice is the first full-time African American employee of Ferguson Township. When Township Manager David Pribulka hired Centrice in a leadership position, he initiated the beginning of change within Ferguson Township.
I keep thinking about the courtroom in Bellefonte and how people of color might feel walking into the courtroom the way it is now. There are visibly no persons of color on staff and the pictures of respectful and honorable men that look homogeneous in nature. My hope is that we see more support for people like Centrice trying to advance their education, training, and careers and more hiring of persons of color. I hope that someday soon I can walk into more local government offices in the state of Pennsylvania with my children so they can see walls that are not only showing pictures of leaders or those that serves the community as being just one gender and one race.