‘He Had Been Throwing Out Hints, Asking Me ‘What Kind of Rings I Liked?’

BY JE’DON HOLLOWAY-TALLEY | Special to the Birmingham Times GENITA & ARMON MATTHEWS Live: McCalla, AL Married: Sept. 22, 2012 Met: In 1991 at Wenonah High School. Armon was a senior, a popular athlete, and well-liked by the ladies. Genita was a freshman. “He was very arrogant, I didn’t have any interest in him, and he didn’t have any interest in me,” Genita said. “He didn’t even know I existed.” Armon said he insists he was not arrogant, just preoccupied. “I was a senior trying to graduate, it was a hectic time in 1991…,” he said. Fast forward 20 years and the two would meet again at their high school alma mater in January 2011. Genita was the assistant principal at Wenonah High School, and Armon was a part-time coach for the football team (as well as the director of T.R. McCoy, a company the Housing Authority Birmingham District hired to run the community centers in the City of Birmingham). During football season that year, Armon was fundraising and selling tickets for the class of 1991’s 20th-year reunion and invited Genita to the festivities. “… I told him I would support him and bought two tickets, one for me and...