O.W. Sadberry Sr. (1909-1970) and his son Oliver “Wayne” Sadberry Jr. (1943-2022) dedicated their lives to community and impacted many, including author-journalist Sunny Nash. More than half a century after Wayne Sadberry ’71 and Sunny Nash ’77 met, the two College of Arts and Sciences former students conducted their final joint project: the 2022 naming of the new Sadberry Intermediate School to honor Prof. Sadberry.
Their three-year process began in 2019 when Wayne Sadberry conceived the idea to name a school after his father. As project leader, he needed Nash’s help, and she agreed to honor his father, who had been her hero for nearly 70 years since she first met Prof. Sadberry when he served as principal of Booker T. Washington Elementary School, where Nash had attended first through seventh grade.
Nash, the first African American to receive a journalism degree from Texas A&M, also is an honors graduate of the London School of Journalism in Media Law, a published author and an internationally acclaimed photographer. Based on their longtime friendship and her impressive credentials, Sadberry recruited Nash to serve as editorial project manager, creative rights administrator and media strategist.
Helping with the mission was a privilege, Nash said, noting that neither she nor other members of the project were paid and that Sadberry held no fundraisers.
“Wayne was the brains of the operation,” Nash said. “I helped him document his father’s landmark achievements, manage digital assets and records, edit submissions, design publications, navigate copyrights and permissions, and develop voting instructions to get his father’s name on the school.”
Wayne led us on a voyage of his own to name O.W. Sadberry Sr. Intermediate School to honor the sacrifices his father made for him, the rest of us and many others.
Wayne Sadberry, a mission-driven leader, guided writing assignments, research and photograph procurement while also controlling project direction, schedules and execution of all activities during the national COVID-19 pandemic shutdown when services, supplies and travel were unfeasible. Sadberry — a powerful writer, copyeditor and proofreader in his own right, according to Nash — read every word she wrote, sending her near-flawless digital copy via the Internet.
Sadberry’s father, O.W. Sadberry Sr., was known throughout his community as professor but also as a mission-driven catalyst for change during the desegregation movement. A devoted family man, Prof. Sadberry dedicated his life to mentoring students, adults and groups that needed his help, making a monumental impact on Bryan, Texas.
In the 1950s, Prof. Sadberry helped U.S. military officers at Bryan Air Force Base find homes for Tuskegee Airmen stationed there as flight instructors. Having taken notice of this successful mission, then-Texas A&M president Gen. James Earl Rudder '32 asked Prof. Sadberry to vet students to attend Texas A&M in summer 1963. When Wayne Sadberry asked Nash to research those events, she discovered that Bernest Evans '67, one of Prof. Sadberry’s summer recommendations, went on to become the first African American to earn a bachelor’s degree from Texas A&M.
In 1970, Washington Elementary burned down, days before Prof. Sadberry opened the school to a multicultural student body. After getting students and teachers relocated, Prof. Sadberry had a stroke. That same year (his son’s senior year studying mathematics at Texas A&M), Nash said Prof. Sadberry dedicated himself to one last mission — ensuring that his son fulfilled his role on a National Science Foundation research voyage to the South Pole to study climate change.
“From his hospital bed, knowing he would never see his son again, Prof. Sadberry told Wayne to go do the research,” Nash said.
In 2019, Wayne Sadberry formed a core team consisting of himself, Nash and his lifelong friend, educator and former Texas Education Agency executive George Vaults. Throughout the process of strategizing the campaign to get the school named, Sadberry worked closely with Nash and the 12-member committee, seven of whom are Aggies.
“Wayne led us on a voyage of his own to name O.W. Sadberry Sr. Intermediate School to honor the sacrifices his father made for him, the rest of us and many others,” Nash said.
Wayne Sadberry’s committee work, including three years gathering testimonials, assembling a voter block, creating databases and publishing the nomination book, Prof. O.W. Sadberry Sr., Man of Quiet Dignity, paid off on February 21, 2022, when O.W. Sadberry Sr. Intermediate School was officially named. Unfortunately, Wayne Sadberry had died the previous month.
Sadberry’s succession plan guaranteed the completion of committee functions after his death. When he had become very ill, he asked Vaults to help Nash preserve the committee’s work. When Vaults then became too ill to finish the work, he asked Carl Bisor to continue helping Nash interpret Sadberry’s strategic roadmap for local change, now recognized by the Bush School of Government & Public Service at Texas A&M.
“Wayne’s roadmap will light paths for ordinary people like us and those around the world to make social change in their villages, towns, parishes and cities," Nash said. "To those who think they have no power due to lack of money, connections or clout, Wayne Sadberry demonstrates that power resides in unity. His perseverance, talent, grit and spirit turned naming a school into the creation of a powerful social statement. And nothing is more Aggie than that.”