Arnold Dale Haywood had hopes of being the first in his family to attend college.
His school guidance counselor helped him obtain grant funding to attend college, but the grant funding was not enough.
“It was going to cost me $32,000 was the four-year estimate,” Haywood, who grew up in North Carolina, said.
Haywood wanted to be a teacher, but he was making more money working at Bojangles than he would if he went to college, then become a teacher.
While college was not a financial option, he promised himself he would make it an option for his children.
At age 16, Haywood began working at Bojangles in his North Carolina hometown. He came to Staunton in 2014 to open six Bojangles in the Valley: one on Richmond Avenue in Staunton, one in Harrisonburg, two in Winchester and two in Charlottesville. Haywood is the recipient of the Frontier Marketing Award with Bojangles Inc. for the Staunton location.
Despite a successful career with Bojangles, Haywood felt something was missing.
“So, what I did to kind of fill that void is write,” he said.
Four years ago, what he had been writing for several years became “The Promise of Tomorrow,” which was published in December after much encouragement from his family, his wife of 30 years, Sherry, his daughter and his son, both of whom have graduated college.
“For me, reading and writing have always took me to a place where I didn’t have to worry about work,” Haywood said of his stress relief.
He has returned to his home town of Union County, North Carolina, where town officials began a scholarship called “The Promise of Tomorrow” at three schools. He held a book launch and community members donated funds for the scholarship.
His hometown inspired him to set up a $1,000 scholarship donated by the Bojangles parent company in partnership with the Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge also called “The Promise of Tomorrow” for a Shenandoah Valley student.
Haywood began a book club at Riverheads High School and helps Staunton High School with its book club and promotes the Bojangles Book Fest, which encourages children to read at grade level. For the first Tuesday of each month, Haywood will donate 150 books to local students during a School Night for different local schools. At each School Night, a local author will be at the Staunton Bojangles.
“I will do this for any school [in the Valley],” Haywood said.
An avid reader, Haywood said he hopes to emulate the works of author Nicholas Sparks with more wholesome fiction novels.
“Honestly, I’m blown away by how amazing this has been,” Haywood said of his first book, local books clubs and the scholarship opportunities for today’s youth.
Haywood’s novel was inspired by Sparks’ “Bridges of Madison County” and the story imitates family camping trips Haywood and his family took when he was growing up.
“I made it into a fictional story where the character has to choose, because he grew up a very sheltered life, and all of a sudden he met people who were different,” Haywood. The main character grew up in a healthy family, but the girl he falls in love with did not have such an easy upbringing. “He has to choose the man he’s going to be.”
Haywood said that while Sparks’ novels are slow to develop, the story in Haywood’s novel develops more quickly.
“A guy has to choose between the love of his life and the life he loves. That’s a Nicholas Sparks’ theme,” Haywood said of his own novel. The theme of “The Promise of Tomorrow” is that we all carry pain from yesterday, but we can move forward with that pain.
Haywood said he hopes his book gets readers out of the mundane and takes them to another place, as any reader hopes to do when they read a good book.
“In my book, in particular, I would pray you would be able to see the difference between the pain of yesterday and the promise of tomorrow.”
The next Bojangles Book Fest will be held Wednesday, November 6, 2024, from 5 to 8 p.m. with a meet and greet with Haywood and local author Linda Miller. All proceeds of sales will go to McSwain and Bessie Weller elementary schools.
On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, Haywood will be at the Augusta County Library, 1759 Jefferson Hwy., Fishersville from 5 to 7 p.m. for a workshop on creative writing and storytelling.
Share
Rebecca Barnabi
