Sure, we broadcast Coppin State sports events and MEAC action on WNST-AM 1570 as the flagship of the mighty Eagles of West Baltimore, but this 125th anniversary celebration has allowed us to tell the real story of a gem of a HBCU school with an incredible heritage and tradition. The First Lady of Coppin State, Toinette Jenkins, gives Nestor the full background on the history of the school and how and why it continues to improve and send young people into the world ready to contribute.
Nestor Aparicio discusses the upcoming Maryland crab cake tour and various local events, including a tribute to the late Mr. Costas. He introduces Toinette Jenkins, the First Lady of Coppin State University, to talk about the institution’s 125th anniversary celebration. Toinette shares her personal story of meeting her husband, Dr. Anthony Jenkins, and their commitment to Coppin State. She highlights the university’s legacy, its recent growth, and the importance of inclusivity and empowerment. Upcoming events include a gala and graduation, with Twana emphasizing the significance of student connections and community support.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Coppin State, 125th celebration, heritage, growth, Fanny Jackson Coppin, Anthony Jenkins, Baltimore, university, students, alumni, empowerment, community, events, graduation, legacy.
SPEAKERS
Nestor Aparicio, Toinette Jenkins
Nestor Aparicio 00:01
Welcome home. We are W, N, S, T AM, 1570 towns in Baltimore. We are Baltimore positive. Nothing more positive than spring time and good weather. We are getting the Maryland crab cake tour back out on the road next week for not opening day. Anybody can do opening day, and everybody’s does up. We’re going to do the second opening day on Wednesday. We’ll be at fadelies downtown. Will be at Lexington market. I want scratch also the Maryland lottery to give away the magic eight balls. Have been a lucky batch. We are winding things down. We’re going to be going all over the place this month. We’re going to be over Coco’s pub later on in the month, I’m wearing my Costa shirt to show my love for mister Costas, the late, great mister Costas, who are celebrating here all week. I am making a tribute this weekend in Toronto as well, just so much going on in and around town as well. And if you listen in the wnst on any given evening or even in the afternoons, the last two weeks, we’ve had me act basketball. We’ve had nit basketball with the ladies and the men. We have proudly been COVID states partner, so much so that I bring my Eagles belt buckle everywhere I go, and maybe not to Canada this week, but twana Jenkins going to join us right now. She is the first lady of Coppin. I actually met her high above the city, with Dr Anthony Jenkins, who supports all we do. We try to support everything that’s going on for many, many years. All we did around here was run basketball games and run sporting events, and we did things for sports, but so many things going on over in West Baltimore, including this huge celebration that has just begun. It was so big that I could barely get a place to park over for the homecoming couple weeks ago over on the campus, I had to park outside of Mondawmin. I had a double basketball game, and Morgan wasn’t even over that weekend. Um, good day to you, twin. And how are you? And how’s Doctor Jacobs, you know, I would invite him down for crab cake, but he’s busy. Yes,
Toinette Jenkins 02:02
yes, I’m doing wonderful. Let me just say thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be with you today. I’m excited to be on your podcast.
Nestor Aparicio 02:10
I told my wife, I said, Look, I gotta shave up and get right. Because I she said it was for Getty Lee, because I’m going up to Toronto and doing all that. I said, No, no, no. You know Mrs. Jenkins is coming on. She first lady cop and and I knew you were going to be button up, so I had to figure this all out. Tell me first things first. I’ve got to know your husband over the course of time and coming out and sit with me. Um, and your relationship, I mean, you your life are, you know, pairing and through a lot of different things, and military and moves. You must have a story to tell. You know, I, I’ve, I’ve known a lot of wives of football coaches who’ve moved their lives from Idaho to here to Bemidji to there, moving around and doing things. Yeah, you and I would have an interesting evening together talking about that, wouldn’t we? Yes,
Toinette Jenkins 03:00
we would Yes, indeed.
Nestor Aparicio 03:03
Where did you meet your husband?
Toinette Jenkins 03:06
I actually met Anthony on an intern, summer internship in Washington, DC, and I was on the third floor. He was on the fourth had not a clue. And one day I had a a paper cut. I was headed to get a band aid into my way back up on the escalator in the middle of the DC superior courthouse, there was this gentleman that was on the escalator ahead of me, and rest is history.
Nestor Aparicio 03:34
They say. Why you bleeding all over the elevator or no?
Toinette Jenkins 03:37
Well, by that time, I had a band aid, but by the time I got up to the top of the escalator, he introduced himself, and pretty much thought that was it. Went out for lunch. And back during those times, there wasn’t social media or way to keep up with each other, so it was pen pals.
Nestor Aparicio 03:53
Wow, wow. By the time
Toinette Jenkins 03:56
I got back to college, I had a stack of letters waiting for me, and the rest is history.
Nestor Aparicio 04:01
Well, you know it is I met you at at the holiday event, and cop is such a family thing, and it’s not. It would not be unusual to have you on and talking about your life and your immersion in your husband’s life into running a university that you know his pride beams in it, but you see it in the room and the people that are around. And every week I welcome someone on, and you and I were do a little pre prep, which I don’t do a lot of green rooming, as you now know. And you’re, you know, like, well, we have a big celebration this year. And I’m like, of course, I know about it. We’ve been talking about it for a year, but it’s now here. And, you know, I had my I did my 25th anniversary. I used to have a 25 cake over here as part of my logo. And I have to think about all the things we did, and we did a documentary, we did stuff last year because it was our big year. But when you put these things together, I think you see behind the scenes that this is a really important milestone for the. Diversity for everyone associated with it,
Toinette Jenkins 05:01
yes it yes it is, you know, when I think back to how we got here, mm, to our namesake, Fanny Jackson, COVID. She was a slave, you know, whose freedom was purchased by her aunt. Moved to Pennsylvania, and from there, she was non stop. She was bold. She had a fierceness, a determination that was just unstoppable, and she became our nation’s first black female principal, our nation’s first black female superintendent. And so to have that as our legacy, I am completely honored and humbled to serve in lockstep with our eighth president, Dr Anthony Jenkins, to serve as its first lady, in order to help not only continue that great legacy, but to help each student, each alumni, each person I meet as an ambassador for Coppin, to feel included, to feel Welcome and to feel empowered as they continue to transform into their better self. So I’m humbled to serve as their first lady. If
Nestor Aparicio 06:07
nothing else, I plead absolute ignorance to understanding the background of the name Coppin and COVID state. And, you know, I literally going back and I tell everyone, everybody knows this. I mean, I’ve been on the air 34 years, but when COVID had the big basketball victory with Fang back in the 90s, which we just celebrated another anniversary of that UMBC, if they didn’t beat them, it would have been the only 15 too. So, I mean, we’ve got a heck of a heritage, and now with Derek, Queen is pulled off with Baltimore. And you know, you know, just it’s been a it’s been a time, I think, for Baltimore, and we’re as you and I speak a year out on losing our bridge, as I wear my Costas shirt over on the east side of town, where you can see the bridge from Costas. You know, the city’s been through a lot, in a lot of ways. And you know, you you guys, have this great story to tell that I’ve been proud of telling the basketball part of it, and the West Baltimore part and the education, and, you know, teacher school and like, you know, and nurses and and all of that. But I think that the schools grown so much, and every time immerse a little bit, I learn more about what’s going on at Coppin all the time. And this 125 is about telling the history, but telling about where you are right now, which is a really thriving and and growing and expanding little place over in West Baltimore that people need to know about outside of West Baltimore. Oh, absolutely.
Toinette Jenkins 07:33
We are definitely Baltimore’s hometown University. We have, we have had our largest cohort Since 2011 with our entering freshmen, and so we are just excited to see them all on campus. We’re excited not only that, just to see the phenomenal things each of our students and our alumni are doing, not only on campus but in the community, even at the Olympics, even winning championships. We have some of the top, top programs that are nationally ranked. So we are. We’re really doing some great things here, and we’re just excited. But not only that, it’s just a family environment we thrive on just making everyone we come in contact with feel welcomed. Because once you feel welcome, once you feel included, that’s just the beginning of your breakthrough, of your transformational journey that they’re on. So that’s, that’s the ultimate aim, just to make you feel included and empowered to continue on your transformational journey. College is not easy. And so if we can help, if I can help in some way, to help those feel empowered inspired, which is what I do with my social media outlets, to drop little empowerment nuggets, just to help them along their way. Then I know that in some way, my role as First Lady is not in vain.
8Nestor Aparicio 08:54
We are chatting with missus twanette Jenkins, Doctor Anthony Jenkins, wife. She’s the first lady at Coppin as we’re celebrating 125 years. And we’ve talked about events. You have a gala coming up in a couple of weeks that’s going to, I don’t see, kick off things. There’s the thing’s been kicked off now. We’re just, yeah, looking toward till the fall. You’re doing a big event in the fall as well, but gaining some momentum here, I think, for everything in 125 you know, the first time I had Dr Jenkins on my first question is military background, Washington. Guy into academia. Why COVID? Why Baltimore? What made it attractive? And I think when he interviews for a job, and he’s moved in different ways in military when you heard Baltimore hopping West, let’s go make a visit like kind of like when you make visits as a student going to university, what did you find that made it attractive then and the now that you bring into this 125 to say that you’ve learned a. About Coppin that maybe not just preconceived ideas or opinions, maybe before you came but I don’t know where your thoughts were before you walked on campus, and where it is now. You
Toinette Jenkins 10:11
know, here again, it was the legacy of Coppin. We had often heard that, you know, Coppin was the hidden jewel of Baltimore, and we didn’t want that to be the case anymore, because there’s so much history, there’s so much potential they already had. There was so much going on. So it was just like, you know, what can we do to bring and help bring all of this to light, to peel back the layers of the onion, so that everyone, not just West Baltimore, but the nation can see that this university can stand its own against anyone. And so that was just, I think, our, our driving factor to, how can we be of service to West Baltimore? What
Nestor Aparicio 10:53
does Doctor Jenkins come home and get excited about? What’s he what when, when you get a good news Texas, bad things happen. Good things happen. That’s leadership, right? Crisis, things just on an all day big of young people in West Baltimore, it’s a lot. Lot of things can go wrong and do and then we fix them. We solve problems, right? But what? What gets him excited when he comes home about something? And I know at the heart of it, you need money to make things run. You need students to want to be there, and once they get there, to have an exemplary experience, to come back. You need alumni focused in on all of it. But what’s gotten him the most excited about this 125 because I haven’t caught up with him, because he’s
Toinette Jenkins 11:36
been so busy, it’s undoubtedly the connections with the students, every connection that he has with the students, the alumni, that gets him excited. It gets him excited when people, when donations, come in to want to help the university, when others see the potential and the greatness that’s already here, that gets him excited. And so it’s like full circle that we are once again standing on the legacy of Fanny continuing in her greatness. It just, is it just with the students, undoubtedly, just getting to seeing how they, each and every day, are transforming into their greatest self that constantly, that’s every day that gets him excited.
Nestor Aparicio 12:21
Events. We got things coming up. People can participate. I mean, people can participate all the time. There’s also, I mean, sherm’s got baseball season rolling over there in space over here to run games. We had the ladies playing the other day at seven o’clock the other night as well. So there’s been a lot of sports and athletics, and I talk about that all the time, and and what’s happening there, but behind the scenes here, this 125 you’re fundraising, you’re doing a lot of things in the community, and you’ve shared, and so your husband shared a bunch of different things here. What’s on the event calendar for you? What are you excited about in promoting today? Well,
Toinette Jenkins 12:58
today, we do have our and not today, but coming up. We do have our anniversary birthday event, the 125 in April. And of course, what gets me excited every year’s graduation that’s coming up, nothing makes me more excited and humble to see is the beginning every year at convocation, when the freshmen get their Eagle pen, and then nothing makes me even more excited every year to see each and every student walk across that stage and get their diploma. So that is also coming up in May. There’s
Nestor Aparicio 13:33
nothing like that sense of like accomplishment, right? When you do that, right? I mean, and the joy and families and and it’s, it’s always a family gig, right? By the time you get to this point, friends, family, love people around you, because not easy, not I mean, I went to college. It was a young parent. I had a job, not easy, not easy to do, and I tried to find the easiest way to do it too. You know, I don’t know about this internet and all this, AI, but I had your IT director on here. So if you tell Dr Kirby, I’m looking out for Mrs. Twana Jenkins is here. She is the first lady of COVID State University. And we, we support the Eagles round here. We’ve been there flagship for a long, long time doing sports stuff. Now we’re trying to do more grown up stuff here as we bring the student athletes into focus, but also bringing the business and all the things that make coping great, and the education, and I think the legacy and the storytelling. I every one of you, is telling me new stories. It’s getting me Google, Fanny, COVID, trying to learn, and it is an inspiring story. And how do I not know more about this? And I feel embarrassed in my ignorance, I really do.
Toinette Jenkins 14:51
But hey, every day you learn that’s great, and it’s something more that you can also continue to share with people about COVID. Yeah. I
Nestor Aparicio 15:00
guess maybe that, if that makes it worthwhile, that everyone Googles the reason for all this and just the background to cop and besides winning big basketball games and being all that, you know, I look forward to seeing you in a couple weeks. I know I’m going to be involved in a couple of the big events my wife heard tell me about, is this a gala? Is this a ball? What is this? Because she’s thinking, what do I kind of wear?
Toinette Jenkins 15:27
Well, it is a birthday celebration. So whatever you would wear to a birthday celebration,
Nestor Aparicio 15:32
is it dress to impress? Because I that’s good always, alright. Well, I can you know, when it says dress to impress, I’m never but when it says, if it has the F word formal, like, once it says, goes formal on me. Now I’m thinking, like, I gotta, you know, maybe look like a penguin or so to do something a little different. You
Toinette Jenkins 15:52
know what I mean? Right, right, right, right, right. That, I’ll have to get back to you on but you
Nestor Aparicio 15:56
can do formal that, you know, just gonna let me know. I just don’t want to show up cocktail nice or dressed to impress. And then I walk in and say, Man, and get the memo on this. How did that happen?
Toinette Jenkins 16:07
It’s okay. It’s okay. However you show up and you show up in your greatness, that’s all that matters. Well, yeah,
Nestor Aparicio 16:13
it’s going to have a lecture check mark in my calendar if I gotta. You know, yeah, right. Juanette Jenkins has been a gracious guest. Uh, her husband will join me at some point for crab cake before graduation. Man, you start giving me graduation. We get 80 degree days. I’m like, I gotta find Dr Jenkins to get him out. Talk about 125, as well. We do support everything you’re doing over Coppin. We are more than just a flagship for their sports. We are their partners as well. You can learn about all the sports in COVID state sports, and you can learn more at Coppin and at the front of Baltimore positive. Thanks for energizing me here today. It’s opening day. Good weather at 25 we got it all
Toinette Jenkins 16:49
Exactly, exactly. So we are I’m wonder. It’s wonderful to be here with you. I’m excited to be on your podcast this morning. Thanks for having me.
Nestor Aparicio 16:58
Well, it was a pleasure. And tell your husband, crab. Are you a crab cake eater? By the way?
Toinette Jenkins 17:03
Actually, I am allergic.
Nestor Aparicio 17:06
Okay, so what? What can I send you that you elbow him and get him out to have a crab cake with me, and that way? Is it all
Toinette Jenkins 17:13
seafood, shellfish. Where are you? It’s shellfish, just shellfish.
Nestor Aparicio 17:18
Alright, I’m trying to think here, you know, I’m trying to think Cocos, Costas, all the places we’re going to be, I am going to get you out, and I’m going to come to your event, and I will not offer you the shrimp cocktail. I’ll keep that away from you. I know some people with some peanut allergies. I don’t need any of that going on. We’re going to keep you whole and keep you in one piece. I will not send him home with crab cakes, but the crab cakes are delicious. I promise you would faithfully stay after opening day. I am Nestor. We are W, N, S, T, A, M, 1570 Towson, Baltimore. We never stop our wise conversations and our friends at COP and looking out for us after 125 years and we’re still learning stuff, it’s Baltimore positive. Stay with us.
