One example of that is the ballot," Eugene H. Bowens Sr. told the crowd.Bowens spent 33 years as president of Interfaith Inc., a faith-based Community Development Corporation in Atlanta.He has been on the board of Kanuga Conferences in Hendersonville.In addition to Bowens, Henderson County Sheriff Rick Davis also addressed the crowd.

The headline speaker this year is Eugene H. Bowens Sr. of Atlanta, past president of Interfaith Inc. Bowens has worked in inner-city Atlanta and with the Community Block Grant programs for many years. Bowens is a native of Florida, with a sociology degree from Florida A&M University.He also received certification to teach elementary education. It was as a teacher that he became involved in community development. "Health, housing and other conditions were so bad that schools were actually shut down due to high incidents of dysentery and impetigo among the children," Bowens said. Bowens began to organize the black, mostly low-income residents of Pinellas County, Fla. Over time, improvements were made to the water and sewer service, health care, street paving, sidewalk, police protection and public housing.A community park and recreation center and Head Start programs began. He left the school system to work with an anti-poverty agency and supervised the first group of VISTA volunteers in the Southeast region. In the mid-1960s, Bowens moved to Atlanta. For the past 33 years he was president of Interfaith Inc., a faith-based Community Development Corp. serving low and moderate income families in the Atlanta metropolitan area. Bowens is a board member of Kanuga Conferences, where Lees met him.

Eugene H. Bowens Sr. of Atlanta, past president of Interfaith Inc., is the featured speaker. Contact Kelley at 694-7871 or e-mail her at leigh.kelley@hendersonvillenews.com.

Guest speaker Eugene H. Bowens Sr. speaks during a ceremony. (PATRICK SULLIVAN/TIMES-NEWS)Martin Luther King Unity Breakfast keynote speaker Eugene H. Bowens Sr. interrupted his speech several times as he asked the audience to pray with him for America's leaders and the leaders of other nations to change their hearts and spirits for "the purpose of peace, justice and brotherhood." Bowens, past president of Interfaith Inc., spoke in front of a standing-room-only audience during the seventh MLK Unity Breakfast at Blue Ridge Community College on Monday."I can only hope that one day we will become freer in our thinking in that we can think for ourselves," Bowens said."California Gov.