Noah Locklear won a brand new 2025 Honda Civic from Lumberton Honda, thanks to his great grades, and attendance this school year.
LUMBERTON — Some good advice from a friend helped Noah Locklear of the Public Schools of Robeson County Early College win a new car Thursday night at the 2025 Beasley Media Group Driven 2 Excel event.
Locklear won a brand new 2025 Honda Civic from Lumberton Honda, thanks to his great grades, and attendance - both at school, and at the event.
His emotional reaction to winning came thanks to a previous Driven 2 Excel winner’s encouragement.
“There was a girl from work that I work with – Shakylia Hunt – she actually won a car a few years ago,” Locklear said about the 2022 winner from Purnell Swett High School. “She told me ‘Boy, there’s a lot of people there, but you got it, I believe in you.’ At first I wasn’t even going to go, I might not win this car. My luck might not be this good … It paid off though, I got my new car right here.”
Locklear celebrated by leaping around and jumping into a hug with Lumberton Honda General Manager Kent Locklear, who presented him with the keys to his new car.
For Noah, the car is going to help with getting back and forth to East Carolina University, where he plans to attend next year, majoring in biology. He has his sights set on med school to become a trauma surgeon.
“I’ve always been interested in the medical field, and one of my friends started talking to me about becoming a surgeon,” he said. “The more I started looking into it, it became my dream.”
Beasley Media of Fayetteville (Foxy 99, The Big 95.7 KML, My Kiss Radio, Sunny 94.3, 96.5 JACK FM, 107.7 The Bounce) awarded Locklear the car from Lumberton Honda for his academic and attendance achievements this school year. To qualify, Robeson County Schools students had to maintain a GPA of 3.2 for the 2024-2025 school year, and have had no more than five unexcused absences.
A whopping 354 students qualified for this year's event, proving that the program is working!
"When they say it takes everyone to raise a child, it really does," Katy Lollis, the Director of Sales and Assistant Market Manager for Beasley Media Fayetteville said. "When we first started this program, we had a total of 197 seniors eligible for the car and the scholarships. We are so thankful to our sponsors from Lumberton Honda and Piedmont Natural Gas."
Lumberton Honda has been the car sponsor for the event for several years now, and for Kent Locklear, the General Manager of Lumberton Honda, giving back to the community is incredibly important.
"I like that we give back to the community and we invest in the youth, who truly are the future of everything," Locklear said. "It's nice to inspire someone to have good grades, and to go to school, and to be able to look at the end of the year, and think they have a shot at a new car. It was wonderful to know that our winner is someone who is truly deserving of the car this year."
Additionally, six $1,000 scholarships were awarded to graduating seniors by Piedmont Natural Gas.
"Even if you do not receive a scholarship or a car today, let me tell you, job well done," said Tammy Thurman, Senior Communications Relations Manager at Piedmont Natural Gas.
The scholarship winners representing the six Robeson County schools were:
Lauren Brown - Fairmont High School
Jae’va Hunt - Lumberton Senior High School
Yamile Dominguez - Purnell Swett High School
Edgar Avilez - Red Springs High School
Kaede Collins - PSRC Early College High School
Kelly Ciriaco Soriano - St. Pauls High School
Lumberton Honda chipped in $1,000 to reward one lucky local educator for their hard work this year too. Yolanda McArthur from St. Pauls Elementary was the winner this year.
Beasley Media Group, Robeson County Schools, Lumberton Honda and Piedmont Natural Gas are proudly supporting the 2025 Driven 2 Excel program in Robeson County.
This article was reproduced on this website with permission. It is written by Brandon Plotnick, of Beasley Media Group.