The Luverne Kiwanis Club hosted its annual senior honors luncheon Tuesday, April 29, at the Luverne Church of Christ. High-achieving seniors from all four local high schools received scholarship awards during the event.

Four seniors received $1,000 scholarships supported by Kiwanis Club fundraising events: Brantley High School’s (BHS) Jackson Wingard, Crenshaw Christian Academy’s (CCA) Hannah Flint, Highland Home School’s (HHS) Anna Kate Foster and Luverne School’s De’Nyia Scott. In addition, four other seniors were awarded $500: Brantley’s Cooper Layton and Emma Crawley, CCA’s Madison Bayman and LHS’s Americle Tayler.

Guest speaker, Crenshaw County District Judge Jon Folmar, addressed students and community members, inspiring the seniors by sharing his personal journey through education and navigating the channels which led him to serve Crenshaw County citizens and encouraging them to persevere toward their own goals.

Guest speaker, Crenshaw County District Judge Jon Folmar, addressed students and community members, inspiring the seniors by sharing his personal journey through education and navigating the channels which led him to serve Crenshaw County citizens and encouraging them to persevere toward their own goals.

“All of you should be honored today,” Folmar said. “Thank you for your accomplishments. I encourage you to go on and accomplish more in the future. I’m sure that, for all of you, it’s your perseverance and determination that got you this far. It’s the backgrounds that you’ve carried with you, the earnest, hard work that [enabled] you to perform and got you to this point in your life.”

The Folmars came to Crenshaw County, migrating to what was then part of Lowndes County in the area’s early days of settlement. With a long legacy of public service, Folmar said he followed those foundational footsteps, and work towards an office from which he could serve local families.

“Like many of you, I too was [once] sitting right where you are today,” Folmar said. “I too went away, waiting to figure out what I was going to do in life. I too was contemplating where I was going to go to college.”

Longtime retired teacher and Kiwanian, Sheila Sasser, introduced Folmar, noting the many accolades he earned in college and throughout his career.

“He’s been a friend of mine for a long, long time, and I even taught one of his children in school,” Sasser explained that Folmar earned a Bachelor of Arts as a Dean’s List student at the University of Alabama before graduating from the National Crime Prevention Institute before earning a Juris Doctorate at Jones School of Law.

Folmar described working his way through college, serving as dorm president and resident assistant to get free room and board. Along the way he met then-President Ronald Reagan and Senator John Glenn, America’s first astronaut.

Sasser described Folmar as one of America’s most honored professionals and someone with a deep connection to Crenshaw County.

“He presides over the district, Criminal District, Civil, Small Claims, Juvenile Court and Circuit Court, domestic relations, early warning, Truancy Court and Veterans Court,” Sasser said. “He’s been a resident of Crenshaw County for over 33 years. He’s married to Gina Renfro Folmar, who worked as the chief juvenile probation officer in Crenshaw County for four years. They have three children and seven grandchildren, and all of his children graduated from Crenshaw County Schools.”

As a young law enforcement officer, Folmar was nominated twice as Officer of the Year for his life-saving efforts. After marrying his high school sweetheart and starting a family, Folmar was a Montgomery District Attorney’s crime investigator when he made the decision to go to law school.

“I put so much into my work,” Folmar said, describing endless hours of work and study to support his family and gain his law degree. “That cost me my marriage. And then in my last year of law school, I wound up being a single father with a son, trying to raise my son, work full time and go to law school. But [they] taught me a lot, those sacrifices.”

Just out of law school, Folmar said he traveled Alabama doing crime prevention programs. After losing his first criminal case due to corrupt law enforcement, Folmar said he learned an important lesson he conveyed to the listening students.

“It’s not your triumphs that are going to define you,” Folmar said. “It’s what you do after failures that will define you. Everybody’s going to fail at some point in their life, but it’s what you do after that. When you pick yourself up, you put back on your clothes, and you get back with it, that’s what’s going to define you in the long run.”