Dr. Damita Griffin Bynes

    Dr. Damita Griffin Bynes will be the featured speaker at Monday’s Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration in Meridian.

    The celebration will begin about 1 p.m. at Dumont Plaza, following the MLK parade in downtown Meridian scheduled to begin at noon.

    This year’s theme is “Women Persevering in Education, Politics and Religion in Achieving the Dream.”

    Bynes attended Meridian Public Schools and is a 1979 graduate of Meridian High School. Her classmates are encouraged to join the public in attending the celebration. A product of St. Paul United Methodist Church, Bynes participated in many civic and community activities in Meridian.

    Currently she is assistant principal of Freshman Academy and math coordinator at Troup County Comprehensive High School in LaGrange, Georgia. She attends Pinola Church of God & Christ and is choir director for Galilee Baptist Church.

    Bynes earned her bachelor’s degree in math/computer science from Tougaloo College, her master’s in administration leadership from Cambridge College in Boston, specialist degree in curriculum leadership from Cambridge College in Augusta, Ga., and her doctorate in administration leadership from Georgia Southern University.

    Bynes is married to Lavern Bynes. They have two sons, Justin and Christopher. She is the daughter of the late John Ed Griffin and Barbara Griffin Tingle and the stepdaughter of Rev. Leon Tingle. Other family includes her sister, Sandra Griffin-Travis and brother, Bishop James E. Griffin and his wife Juanita. Her grandparents are the late Lewis Hopkins Sr. (Annie Lee) and Mrs. Virgie D. Grady and Buster Griffin.