For the first time in the nearly three decades since the Martin Luther King Jr. Day was first observed, the town of Garland will be joining in the festivities.

The town of Garland/N.C. STEP Leadership team is sponsoring a Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Celebration Monday, at 5 p.m. The celebration will be held at Saint Stephen AME Zion Church at 51 East Third St. and the Union High School Gospel Choir will be featured.

“In the 27 years since the inception of this holiday, this is the first Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration held in the town of Garland and the first year that the town of Garland and its employees will observe it as a holiday,” a press release from Garland mayor Winifred Murphy stated. “All citizens of Garland and surrounding areas are invited to attend.”

In honor of the MLK holiday, the town will present two Martin Luther King, Jr. Legacy Awards to the families of the late Dr. Amos Neal Johnson and the late Henry Lee “Buddy” Treadwell.

Dr. Johnson was president of the N.C. Medical Society in 1959, president of the American Academy of General Practice and served on the Board of Trustees at the University of North Carolina. He was also very instrumental in working with others in founding East Carolina University Medical School in Greenville, N.C. In a resolution of condolence adopted by the American Academy of Family Physicians upon his death in 1975, it was noted that “he gracefully wore the mantle of leadership in all his endeavors and served as a model of the true and complete physician.”

Treadwell was awarded an Honorary Physician Assistant’s certification from Duke University in 1970. Dr. Johnson died in 1975 and “Buddy” died in 1990.

Having made such a tremendous impact not only in the medical field at the local, state, and national level but in the area of humanity, the Garland committee felt their contributions exemplified the principals of Dr. King and deserved the first legacy awards, Garland mayor Winifred Murphy stated.

Dr. Johnson was the son of one of the founding fathers of Garland and the first mayor of Garland (Jefferson Deems Johnson). He has one surviving child, Amos Neal Johnson Jr., who lives in Lehigh Acres, Fla. North Carolina Supreme Court Judge Jefferson Deems Johnson, Jr., who died in 1985, was brother to Dr. Amos Johnson.

Treadwell, son of Butler and Georgia Johnson Treadwell, has four children: Vivian Gunter and Linda Corbin, both of Clinton, Mary Ann Townsend of Denver, Colo., and Henry Lee Treadwell Jr. of Garland.