“The Girls” from the Southampton High School Class of 1969 will meet for its annual reunion at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 19, at Simply Divine in downtown Franklin.

For at least five years, the women have gathered the Tuesday after Father’s Day at Applebee’s in Franklin, said classmate Martha Ann Washington Wright. Martha lives in Chesapeake, where she is the nurse recruiter for Chesapeake Regional Medical Center.

“We e-mail each other and we’re friends on Facebook,” Martha Ann said.

Others expected for the reunion are Kathy Simmons Clay, Celeste Cobb Kelly, Cynthia Grizzard Turner, Becky Smith Martin, Peggy Gillette, Nancy Edwards Partridge, Cookie Hancock Duffy, Margie Thorpe McClenny, Frances Premaza Edwards and Dianne Williams Custis.

Celeste is coming from Alabama, Dianne from the Eastern Shore, Becky from North Carolina, and Claudia and Cookie live in Chesapeake.

* Franklin High School senior Chasity Hunt was among four Hampton Roads high school seniors who received a $7,500, four-year scholarship from the Tidewater Builders Association Scholarship Foundation. Chasity was chosen from among 160 applicants.

She received the Howard M. and Nancye C. Weisberg Scholarship, made possible by an endowment from the builder who chaired the foundation when it was started in 1965.

Chasity, her parents Brenda and Ernest Hunt and Franklin High School Principal Dr. Rodney Berry attended an awards ceremony on May 31 at Tidewater Builders Association in Chesapeake.

Chasity plans to attend Virginia Commonwealth University to study pharmaceutical medicine.

* Although the Franklin/Southampton Relay for Life event was held Saturday, the Steps of Hope continues to raise money with its Dairy Queen fun nights on Armory Drive in Franklin.

The next team event will be 5 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 10, followed by another on Wednesday, Aug. 1.

The team receives 10 percent of proceeds and 25 percent from the sale of DQ cakes, which benefits the American Cancer Society. Steps of Hope has raised $10,100 this year.

Ghassemi also co-owns the Arby’s in Emporia and will soon operate an Arby’s in Virginia Beach.

Ghassemi came to the United States from Iran in 1970 to attend college. He worked in food service while in college and continued for 27 years in Virginia and Washington, D.C.

GWEN ALBERS is managing editor of The Tidewater News. Her email address is gwen.albers@tidewaternews.com.