President of the Alumni Association, Buffy Hoge, went to Central from 1970 and to 1974. Her class was the fifth to graduate from the new Central building.

“When I was here, the school was so new you could smell the enamel paint,” reminisced Hoge.  

Hoge was very shy and spent most of her time behind a camera, taking pictures for the Champion and the Digest. She didn’t pay a lot of attention to Central’s history then, but now part of her job as the President of the Alumni Association is to preserve the history of Central. Hoge loves talking about fellow Central alumni, the various plaques and awards throughout the building, and the lengthy list of Alumni Hall of Fame inductees.

“I look back and realize that most of that (the disinterest in the school’s history) was just being a teenager. It didn’t really matter,” stated Hoge. 

After graduating, she wanted work in architecture and spent two years at Cleveland State and a semester at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville before joining the air force. Hoge is a mechanically minded person, who worked repairing air craft avionics, the navigation and display on air crafts. Before working for the air force, Hoge served a second term in satellite communications. When she retired from the air force, she came home to work for the city of Chattanooga in public safety radios. 

Hoge works as the President of the Alumni Association, and representative of alumni to Central’s administration and student body. As President, she is also responsible for the association’s funding, events, and providing alumni scholarships. 

There are twelve alumni scholarships here at Central that are awarded to students with two point five grade point averages and above.  Students must fill out the scholarship application and write their application essay,which are then returned to Central’s College Access Advisor, Stacey Alexander, who sends applications, essays, and transcripts to the Alumni Association for review and reward. 

While Hoge has many duties as President of the Alumni Association, she also does various jobs around the school including repairs, assisting Central’s librarian Melinda Martin, searching for Central antiquities for school archives, and is even tracing student lineages for generational students. 

Next time you see Buffy walking through Central, feel free to ask a about the school, you might learn a little something!