By Andrew Tomsky, NAU Media Relations

When Robyne Bostick got a call this summer from new NAU women's basketball head coach Sue Darling about an assistant coaching position, it was more than just a job inquiry. It was more than an invitation to reunite with Darling after the two worked together at Air Force, more than a new direction after working as a personal trainer for the last four years. It was a call home.

Bostick's grandfather was Wilson Riles. The Wilson Riles whose name has adorned Riles Hall on North campus since 1986 and whose likeness is featured on a mural covering the Murdoch Center just northeast of the NAU campus on Butler Street. The Wilson Riles who was one of the first black students to graduate from Northern Arizona University and who helped desegregate Flagstaff schools before such action became law. The trailblazer Wilson Riles who went on to serve as California Superintendent of Public Instruction and was the first African American to be elected to statewide office in the state of California.

"I just remember him being a typical grandfather," said Bostick. "I knew he had a pretty important job but I don't think I fully understood what it was until I got a little bit older. It was pretty cool to walk around campus the first few days I was here and getting to see the building and mural as a reminder of the influence that he had on the city of Flagstaff."

Riles graduated from NAU in 1940 as one of the first black students to be commissioned a degree by the University. In the late 1940's he became principal of the Dunbar School, the school for black children in Flagstaff which began in the same building that now houses the Murdoch Center, and he began working with Sturgeon Cromer, the superintendent of Flagstaff's public schools, to begin the process of desegregation. In 1952, two years before the practice was put into law following the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling, the Dunbar School was closed and Flagstaff's black students were integrated into the populations at South Beaver School and Flagstaff High School. It was the first step that Riles took to abolish segregation in education.

Riles and Robyne's grandmother Mary Louise, who was also a teacher at the Dunbar School, subsequently moved their family to Los Angeles where Riles worked as an educator and reformer working with disadvantaged children. In 1970 Riles defeated incumbent Max Rafferty to become the state Superintendent of Public Instruction as the first African American elected official in the state. He was elected to two subsequent terms, earned the Spingarn Medal by the NAACP for outstanding achievement by an African-American in 1973, and served in the office until 1982. Prior to his death in 1999 Riles founded the Wilson Riles Archives and Institute for Education in Sacramento and, in addition to his living tributes in Flagstaff, the Wilson C. Riles Middle School in Roseville, Calif. operates in his honor.

"It's pretty cool that when I walk or drive around campus I can't help but think about my grandfather and it keeps his memory alive," said Bostick. "I know how much NAU meant to him as he got his education here and was one of the first black students to graduate in 1940. He left quite a legacy here and it's great to be reminded of him every day."

Her grandfather's legacy is most prominently seen on the year-old mural at the Murdoch Center, which is a multi-cultural community center that serves the Southside community of Flagstaff, with its building having originally served as the Dunbar School for black students. The Southside Community Association is the umbrella for the Murdoch Center and they conducted a community assessment to find out who should be depicted as some of the heroes of the South Side for the mural, which was dedicated last October.

The director of the Murdoch Center, named after African American instructor and mentor to Wilson Riles Cleo Murdoch, is Reggie Eccleston who, coincidentally, joined NAU-TV's football broadcast team this year as a sideline reporter after a standout playing career at Connecticut and in the NFL. He says the mural and those depicted on it illustrates the rich history of African American reformers in the city of Flagstaff.

"What we were trying to get when we did the mural was to get more community understanding as to the rich history that has been there in the Southside," said Eccleston. "The people that we depicted have been very influential in the community and they are all from the south side. Wilson Riles and Lawrence Dunbar were critical in building education for the neighborhood and we also have Mary Dorsey, who was one of the first black flight attendants on a major airline, and others.

It's been a pleasure to gain some of this knowledge and celebrate some of these people with the Murdoch Center and that's we try to strive for – to become a focal point in the community as a multi cultural center. We just want to bring community and family together and the mural illustrates that."

Bostick's mother, Narvia, was born and raised in Flagstaff with her three brothers in the Riles household. The house that they grew up in still stands just off the NAU campus on N San Francisco Street. The immediate family moved to the Los Angeles area when Narvia was a child, but as an adult she took her daughter Robyne to Flagstaff and taught her about the great history of her family.

"When she was growing up here she said Flagstaff was a lot smaller," recalls Bostick. "Her and her brothers would walk down the street to the cemeteries and there was nothing else around but a few campus buildings."

The family has continued to maintain roots in the community as Robyne's great grandmother lived in Flagstaff into the 1980's and Robyne has a cousin and an aunt who grew up in Flagstaff and have remained citizens of the mountain town. Narvia lives in Pennsylvania, where Robyne attended high school and college, but comes to Flagstaff often to see her family and check up on duplexes that the family owns and rents out on O'Leary Street.

Narvia came out to Flagstaff for the mural dedication last October and had only positive things to say to Robyne about the growth of the town. When Robyne got the offer to be reunited with Darling and the city of Flagstaff as an assistant with the NAU women's basketball team, her mother was overjoyed.

"She was very excited that I was offered the job and I took it," said Bostick. "She said my grandfather would be very proud, so hopefully I'll be able to make him proud."

When Bostick accepted the job and moved to Flagstaff she explored the Murdoch Center and found an old black and white photo hanging up on a bulletin board in the study hall. In the middle of the photo were her grandfather and grandmother smiling back at her. She knew she was home.