Vernon Haley makes no apologies about his origin from East Elmhurst, Queens.  Vernon went to Forest Hills HS in the year where the school begun integrating black students.  As Vernon puts it “it opened doors for me.”  Vernon took advantage of educational and recreational programs one of which was joining the basketball team.  Vernon stated he was an excellent player which afforded him a full scholarship to Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, however, as Vernon described “this was a HUGE transition for me” and after 6 months transferred to Howard University.  Vernon describes his transfer to Howard as LIFE CHANGING (you can feel the excitement as he tells the story) he asks, “can you imagine living in the same dorm as Stokely Carmichael, and H. RAP Brown?   Or going to school with Phylicia Rashad, Debbie Allen, and Donny Hathaway?”  Uh No! but I know that had to be something special!  While at Howard Vernon majored in Physical Education and Recreation, joined the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, and the ROTC (which was mandatory back then) and became 2nd Lieutenant for the Airforce.  When Vernon graduated from Howard he lived abroad in Hawaii and Japan and became a Captain in the Airforce and was discharged in 1971. 

After leaving the military Vernon began to seek work and a fellow fraternity brother told him about a job in Harlem as the Director of the East Harlem Model Cities Scholarship Program.  Vernon took the job, and we enjoyed a joke about him checking on his car every day during his lunch hour to ensure it was still there.  Vernon then received an opportunity to work at Bronx Community College where he built and developed the Office of Special Service Programs, which included TRID, Upward Bound, and EOC.  Vernon was also elected Regional President, and 1 of the 13 founders for the National Council for Opportunity Programs.  Vernon stayed with Bronx Community College for 16 years and was selected to become VP of Student Development at York College of the City University of New York.  Vernon continued his Executive Management trajectory in higher education, as the Dean of Educational Opportunity Center at the State University at Brockport in Rochester, and as VP of Student Services at Metropolitan State College in Denver (where he discovered his passion of snowmobiling), and finally as VP of Student Services at Palm Beach State College.  After 38 years in higher education Vernon retired in 2005.

Vernon met and married his wife Joyce in Kansas City in 2006.  Vernon admitted he had a little convincing to get Joyce to move to Florida because most of her family lived in Kansas, but he did convince her to vacation in the Villages a few times.  Vernon and Joyce rented in different Villages for 3 years and finally decided to make the move permanently in 2012 in the Village of Woodbury.  Vernon was attending a line dance lesson where he met Arthur Boyd who told Vernon about TAAC and the Sophisticated Gents.  Vernon joined both clubs and became President of the Sophisticated Gents in 2014-2018 it was during Vernon’s second year of Presidency that the Scholarship Luncheon was introduced and developed by the Gents Scholarship Committee and Chaired by Vernon and eventually included by TAAC.  Vernon was recently re-elected in 2023.  Vernon states his mission with this Presidency is clear and that is to continue community outreach, re-engagement to members, collaboration, and transparency. 

Vernon enjoys snowmobiling, a track & field enthusiast, being a delegate for the CHI TAU Chapter of Omega Psi Phi, his German Shephard, Shih Tzu, and cruising.  I asked Vernon if he has any plans to slow down, and he said, “I do when I’m on vacation with my wife.”   I hear that Vernon!