Four Oklahoma students will ride in inaugural parade

Four students from Oklahoma will be riding in the Presidential Inaugural Parade on Friday, as members of the Culver Military Black Horse Troop and Culver Girls Academy Equestriennes.

The 56-member Black Horse Troop will include James Armstrong, of Marlow; Bryson Bankston, of Wayne; and James Kirkwood, of Marietta. The 24-member Equestriennes will include Ashley Dillard, of Elk City.

This will be the 17th inaugural parade for the Black Horse Troop and the eighth for the Equestriennes.

A junior, Armstrong is the son of James and Lara Armstrong, of Marlow. Bankston, a junior, is the son of Bryan and Schelly, of Wayne. A freshman, Kirkwood is the son of William Kirkwood, of Marietta, and Lisa Kirkwood-Slate, of Dallas. Dillard, a senior, is the daughter of Nicole Marr, of Elk City.

All four students are attending Culver Academies, a college preparatory school in Culver, Indiana, after receiving a Jud Little Scholarship. The scholarship covers tuition, room and board and other expenses at the school for one year. It is a renewable for a total of four years.

Little, an Ardmore businessman, established the scholarship to help rural Oklahoma students attend Culver. Little is a 1965 graduate of the school and was named the school’s graduate of the year in 2015.

The Black Horse Troop and Equestriennes are scheduled to be the second grouping of the parade featuring units from Indiana, home state of vice president-elect Mike Pence. Culver’s first inaugural parade was in 1913 as the official escort of Vice President Thomas Marshall, who was the former governor of Indiana.

The parade will be televised live. Uninterrupted coverage will be broadcast on C-SPAN. More details about Culver’s inaugural activities are available at culver.org/CulverRides.