Winston-Salem State University alumnus Donald Cureton Jr. is featured on the latest edition of Charlotte’s The Paradigm Beauty & Barber Magazine.

The 34 year-old Mecklenburg County District Court judge sports a fresh haircut in the cover photo, but Paradigm writer Rashad Phillips says it was his former Garinger High School (Charlotte) classmate’s achievements, not his sense of style, that made Cureton a great candidate for the quarterly publication’s feature story.

The magazine seeks out positive stories about African Americans to offset all the negative media images, and Cureton, a graduate of Howard University School of Law, fit the bill, Phillips said.

“Our magazine’s called Paradigm. We’re trying to be a catalyst for a paradigm shift,” he remarked. “We definitely have to shift that way of thinking so that people can see that these (careers) are possibilities.”

Phillips, an alumnus of Johnson C. Smith University, remembers Cureton as a standout athlete, and said Cureton surprised many when he passed up the chance at college ball glory by opting for an academic scholarship over an athletic one. Read More