Category: Vision

Women of Achievement
2002

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Nancy B. Sorak

When she was a little girl, Nancy sometimes slept in her grandmother’s artist studio in the Tampa Bay area of Florida. The other essential figure in her life, her mother, was deeply involved in the local political scene. This combination, the artist’s creative internal life and the necessarily social life of politics, has defined Nancy’s career. She is known for her sharp intelligence, political toughness, creativity and razor-sharp wit.

Nancy earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Florida in Gainesville and taught briefly in Pensacola. But then she changed her life. She sold her house and everything in it to pay for law school at Florida State. She got a job as a legislative intern, writing legislation for the House Education Committee to pay the bills. With her law degree in hand, she moved to Memphis in 1974 to join her husband, Richard, a pioneer pilot with Federal Express. She looked for work for a year but, as she says, “there weren’t a lot of women lawyers then.” When she was hired as the first female public defender in City Court, newspaper and television covered the moment. A year later, she was chief public defender.

In 1977, she and two previous Women of Achievement honorees, Veronica Coleman-Davis and Karen Williams, formed the first all-female, biracial law firm in Tennessee. Also in 1977, Nancy was a “founding mother” of Network. Isolated in male-dominated workplaces across the city, she got women together “to share the experiences of being women working on equal professional levels with men.” Network was an oasis where stories, contacts and friendship could be shared. It grew to more than 200 members by the mid-1980s, and continues to be a place where professional women gather for support.

Nancy Sorak became the first woman to run for judge, and win, in Memphis history. While two others had been appointed, in 1967 and 1978, Nancy won her judgeship in a tough election, then won re-election four times and served 16 years in City Court Division 3.

In her art, Nancy explores the many aspects of the feminine, often turning traditionally domestic items and symbols into powerful feminist messages. In a rustic Mississippi coast studio, Nancy is pursuing what she calls her “drawn paintings.”

Sometimes with an unseen hand, but always with an unbending commitment to equity and opportunity, Nancy helped pave the way for women in law and politics in Memphis and Shelby County. Nancy Sorak’s vision opened pathways for other women and boosted the dreams and ambitions of many key leaders in our community today.

Women of Achievement
2001

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Janann Sherman

Janann Sherman didn’t start out to be a historian. After high school she married Charlie Sherman and they both worked as electronics technicians in an Arizona Motorola factory. Ten years later, as a side effect from some medication, Charlie lost his eyesight. Moving to Arkansas, Janann started community college at age 35 on Charlie’s G.I. bill. After finishing her degree in history and psychology at the School of the Ozarks, Janann was awarded a full five-year fellowship to Rutgers University to pursue a master’s degree and then a doctorate in history based on a senior thesis written about Lady Bird Johnson. “The program was very difficult, but I was too stubborn to quit. I had discovered women’s history, discovered my history. I got excited and, consciously or unconsciously, made it my mission to share their history with women.”

Her mentor at Rutgers suggested she investigate Margaret Chase Smith who served in Congress for 33 years, 24 of those in the U.S. Senate. Most of her time as senator, Smith was the only woman. She left office in 1973, but kept all of her private papers and limited access to them. After winning Smith’s trust, Janann spent six years in conversation with her, gathering information that would become her doctoral dissertation in 1993. The entire work, No Place for a Woman: A Life of Senator Margaret Chase Smith, was highly praised by The New York Times Book Review in February 2000. Janann said, “Margaret didn’t live to see it, but she knew her story would be told and her place in history assured.”

In 1994, the year she turned 50, Janann accepted the position of Assistant Professor of History at the University of Memphis. Then she met Carol Lynn Yellin and Paula Casey. Her collaboration with Carol Lynn became The Perfect 36: Tennessee Delivers Woman Suffrage. And thanks to Paula Casey’s fund-raising, this book has been given to every school and library in Tennessee.

Janann is currently working on an anthology about Betty Friedan, the mother of modern feminism. At the University, she is team-teaching a course with Dr. Beverly Bond called “Parallel Lives: Black and White Women in American History.” Sherman and Bond plan to produce a textbook so the course can be taught in other schools. Janann has also begun work on the story of Phoebe Omlie, an aviator who owned an air circus, won the first transcontinental race for her airplane class in 1929, and, with her husband, opened the first airport north of Memphis.

Dr. Janann Sherman is soon to be an Associate Professor of History at the University of Memphis. Her community involvement includes board membership with Memphis Heritage, Inc., serving the Memphis historical community; coordinating Tennessee History Day, an enrichment program for students in grades 6 through 12; and as editor of Network’s monthly newsletter. Janann remarks on her commitment to women’s history, “I get so many of my personal needs met by telling these stories.”

In 2003, Janann and Beverly Bond published Memphis Black and White, a short history of the Bluff City.

Women of Achievement
2000

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Donna Sue Shannon

Donna Sue Shannon grew up in a neighborhood off Third Street and began a lifelong association with the YWCA as a Y Teen at Lauderdale School. Always a strong speaker, one year she outsold all but one child in the national Y Teens’ annual potato chip fundraiser. Excellent grades and leadership won her a scholarship to the University of Tennessee-Knoxville where she became president of the college YWCA chapter.

A year short of graduation, she married, became a “Marine wife” with two children and began work as a realtor in Cherry Point, N.C.

Back in Memphis, as a single mother fully responsible for her family, she earned two degrees from the communications department of Memphis State University. Donna Sue began a teaching affiliation with the university that continued for a quarter of a century.

Donna Sue learned of the Rearing Children of Goodwill program organized by the National Council of Christians and Jews. It was 1968. Church women, black and white, read and studied and talked together. In the midst of the program, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in Memphis. “I was in the place God wanted me to be,” Donna Sue says, “in a learning, studying environment with black and white women. It was my life and it was my world.”

She joined the Panel of American Women to work for improved race relations by fostering personal relationships and social interactions between black and white women. She spoke for the panel throughout the city. Donna Sue and her children endured harassment and intimidation from their neighbors, but her commitment to inclusivity and diversity blossomed and grew.

Donna Sue was able to put that commitment most concretely to work as the first director of training and development for Memphis Light Gas & Water in 1979. Hired when the utility was under a court order to change personnel practices, Donna Sue was directed to “centralize, standardize and formalize all training for all employees.” Translation: She had to change everything.

In a little more than five years, she built a training department and created workshops and intensive programs that would identify and nurture potential supervisors and managers among women and minority employees. Translation: She caught a lot of heat.

But the MLGW work continues to be her proudest career achievement. “I believe what was needed was someone who had the vision and the impetus to remedy some past problems … I believed that we needed civil rights and affirmative action.”

Her vision led her into active work with Church Women United, Network and the board of the Transition House for Women. As YWCA president in 1991, she instituted a strategic planning process that focused the agency on the mission – and vision – that Donna Sue believes and lives: to empower women and their families.

Donna Sue Shannon passed away on July 8, 2022.

Women of Achievement
1999

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Frances Grant Loring

Frances Grant Loring was born with deep roots in the Memphis community and a heart committed to making it better.

She has consistently chosen to do the unexpected when it will serve to further literacy, adult education, civil rights, racial and religious justice, and the empowerment of women and minorities.

She is a 12th-generation American and a 6th generation Memphian who lives on and manages Frayser property that has been in her family since 1823. She earned her law degree from Vanderbilt University in 1944 and came home to be a lawyer when that was still a rare move for a woman.

This was during the Crump era when women were not expected to become involved in civic matters. Frances practiced with the firm of Snowden, Davis, Brown, McCloy and Donelson through 1949.

She then ventured in a new direction. She joined a religious order and studied in Cenacle Houses in New York, Chicago and Rome. She took her final vows in Rome in 1957. From 1952 through 1966, Mother Frances worked in counseling and continuing education in various American and Canadian cities.

In 1967 to 1968, she was an assistant to the president of Saint Xavier College in Chicago where she earned an M.A. in theology in 1967.

Returning to Memphis, she was assistant professor and chairman of the theology department at Christian Brothers College from 1968 to 1972. She also has consulted various denominations on adult education and the humanities. She wrote several published studies and manuals on adult education and justice and taught at Memphis Theological Seminary. She is a founding member of the Association of Women Attorneys – who named their leadership award for her and pioneering attorney Marion Griffin – the Tennessee Lawyers Association for Women, Network of Memphis and the Metropolitan Inter-Faith Association.

Frances has served on dozens of local and national boards providing leadership to women and girls throughout her life, including the National Board of Managers of Church Women United and its task force on multinational corporations; the speakers bureau of Women for Memphis; Health and Welfare Planning Council (forerunner of United Way); Planning and Program Committee of Family Service of Memphis and the YWCA.

Frances Grant Loring brought her compassionate understanding of human nature and commitment to justice to decades of service for community change. Steadily since the 1970s, being a lawyer has been her work, but serving others has been her passion. She believes in the inherent dignity and worth of all persons, striving in every way to open doors and improve opportunity for all, particularly women and girls.

Women of Achievement
1998

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Ellida Sadler Fri

Through all of her numerous community activities, Ellida S. Fri has been a silent role model to those around her – leading with her actions. With compassionate leadership and empathy, she has paved the way for others. Her encouragement, good nature, and positive attitude have endeared her to those she meets.

Ellida became involved with the YWCA when she was 9 and attending a camp in Connecticut. She has been a volunteer ever since. Many years and three states later, she has crossed the country making an impact in every community where she has lived. In Lexington, Kentucky, she realized that groups of girls weren’t being served and she was proactive in starting racial and economic outreach while serving as the teenage program director for the YWCA. In Hawaii, she became the associate director of the YWCA where she was a founder of the Runaway House in Honolulu for delinquent girls. Since 1973, the Memphis YWCA has reaped the rewards of Ellida’s commitment to service.

She served on the organization’s Downtown Committee and also as chairperson of the “Action Audit for Change” program designed to encourage YWCA participation by women of all races and backgrounds. When the YWCA relocated to its present location on Highland Avenue, the facility was named the Ellida Sadler Fri Administration Building in appreciation of her longtime support.

In addition to working with the YWCA, she has been active with the Memphis Symphony League, Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority, Shelby County and Tennessee Republican Women, Planned Parenthood of Memphis, Memphis Literacy Council and was honored by Big Brothers/Big Sisters as “Woman of the Year” for all her work. She was also named to “Who’s Who in Hawaii.”

Ellida’s hope is to be a beacon for young girls, helping to realize their potential and that they can do anything they set their minds to. In addition, she hopes young girls realize the honor that comes in serving others and helping those in need. Through her example, girls and women have gained strength and self-confidence.

Women of Achievement
1997

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Deborah M. Clubb

In March 1984, a group met to discuss establishing awards to recognize accomplishments of local women. They were all too familiar with the abundance of tributes for prominent men while women’s contributions seemed taken for granted. One person was the instigator for calling these women together for the cause: Deborah Clubb.

The result of her effort was Women of Achievement, a diverse and community-wide coalition of women’s groups and other supporters. It was Deborah’s vision as the founding president of Women of Achievement that has brought people together each March for 13 years, to honor women of all races, all creeds and all backgrounds each year as we celebrate Women’s History Month. “Our presence at Women of Achievement events says we believe in celebrating women, our victories, our work, as we make choices, take chances and change ourselves and our world,’’ Deborah said.

Deborah grew up on family farms in Henry County, Ky., the eldest of five children sharing cattle and crop chores. She noticed ways that boys and girls were treated differently but had no name for her observations and feelings. In the fall of her first year at Transylvania University, she took a short-term class taught by a female literature professor and a male history professor. Its title – “Up Against the Wall, Mother: Women in History and Literature.’’ It was 1972. The second wave of the American women’s movement was underway and those two teachers, the first feminists she ever knew beyond some new college friends, gave her words to express what she had observed all her life about roles, about place, about why things were as they were – and why those things needed to change. “Speaking up and out and giving a voice to wrongs I saw became part of me,’’ Deborah said.

With degrees in English and history from Transy in 1976, she took a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern in 1977 and got a job as associate editor at Farm Business Inc., in Washington, D.C., covering agriculture policy and Congress for farm magazines. In 1978, she became the first female reporter on The Commercial Appeal’s business news staff. In the nearly 20 years since, she has campaigned daily as a reporter and editor to improve the role of women in the newsroom and their portrayal in the newspaper.

In her personal life, she has worked equally hard for women’s issues, as the first female chair of deacons at Lindenwood Christian Church, president and steering committee member of Network, on the board of the Economic Justice for Women Coalition and as a mentor for Girls, Inc.

Mid-South women now receive the recognition they deserve because of Deborah Clubb’s vision of an exciting celebration night, reminiscent of the Oscars, where women would be the stars.

Deborah retired from The Commercial Appeal in December 2003 after more than 25 years and is pursuing other writing and advocacy projects.

Women of Achievement
1996

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Elinor ‘B’ Bridges

Elinor ‘B’ Bridges has become a legend in her own time among the more recent generations of women activists in Memphis.

Her work in women’s causes and in discovering women’s history reaches into the 1920s and 1930s during the struggle for the vote and equal rights. Her great-grandmother, grandmother and mother were all ardent feminists in Mississippi, so B’s activism has always been key to her life. Her great-grandmother was the first woman to vote in Mississippi. That activism, B said, still is not extremely popular in her age group. “I’ve had ’em shake their fists at me and say, ‘You just want to be like the men.’ And of course that’s not true. … “If you dared to try to do anything, you were a ‘pushy woman.’ I just try to ignore it and go on – that’s all you can do.”

Early on, she broke an employment barrier when she was hired by the federal government as an accountant because her name – B Bridges – hid her gender.

Her paid career was an accountant but her passion was writing and communicating, especially about women’s history and concerns. She also worked for women’s rights as a member of the American Pen Women and the Business and Professional Women. She argued the need for change to make society an equal place in articles published in The Commercial Appeal.

She is revered by other leaders like Carol Lynn Yellin, Mary Robinson and Frances Loring as a founder of the Memphis women’s movement. In 1960, Memphis State University gave her its “Woman of the Year” award and she was listed in the 1970-71 Who’s Who Among American Women. She was a founder, first treasurer and newsletter editor for the Women’s Resource Center. She secured a grant through Levi Strauss that funded furnishings for the center. She spent hours working to keep it going when funds for staff ran out.

At age 68, she headed the center’s women’s history committee that worked with Dr. Willie Herenton, Barbara Sonnenburg and others to integrate women’s history with the history and science curriculum in the public schools. She wrote for national publications including the BPW national magazine about the school history program. She was not satisfied when the idea of a “women’s history week” in the schools was suggested. She pressed for full integration of course content. The whole idea, she said, is that “women’s history, whatever their race, is American history.”

B was born in 1909 in Mississippi. She knew her three generations of feminist foremothers. She will be 87 in April 1996, and is still writing to The Commercial Appeal. Always the activist, B organized a consciousness-raising group after moving into a senior high rise on Highland.

Only failing eyesight forced her to cease her accountancy career after 51 years. But her vision for women – her push for equal rights and opportunity for women – has never failed.

B died December 16, 2002, at age 93.

Women of Achievement
1995

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Dr. Theresa Okwumabua

Dr. Theresa Okwumabua has witnessed firsthand the tragedies of ignorance, the lack of education and low self-esteem in young girls. In her professional career as a psychologist, she has gone above and beyond to make a difference in the personal lives of teen mothers and has systematically worked to provide learning where none existed, to provide hope where all had been lost, and specifically to reverse the vicious cycle of recurrent teen pregnancy.

Theresa was employed by Memphis City Schools Mental Health Center in August 1990 to head the mental health team at the Adolescent Parenting Program. At the beginning, she had two social workers and served a limited number of teen parents. In four years, her staff expanded to include eight social workers, one community advocate and two support people.

During her first year, Theresa was responsible for implementing the Student Enrichment Period – a non-graded class time for young parents in which social workers led group discussions about issues such as problem-solving, conflict-resolution, decision-making and interpersonal relationships.

Theresa’s vision led to a program called “Look at Me.” With a federal grant, the mental health team works with pregnant teens who have quit or are dropping out to return to school and stay in school for a period of 24 months with progress toward high school graduation.

Another program Theresa initiated and received a grant to fund is called “Project READ” which teaches students how to read to their children. Teen parents increase their reading skills and learn how to spend quality time with their own children.

Through yet another grant, Theresa initiated another program called “Rites of Passage.” It uses an African-American perspective and tribal/cultural methods to teach adolescents about health, social and education issues, and personal and familial responsibilities. “Rites of Passage” is being adopted as a statewide model for program intervention and Theresa’s book about the concept will advance it nationally.

Theresa’s bright vision for at-risk teens includes college attendance, independent living and a life of purpose that had previously seemed beyond their reach.

Theresa chairs the Memphis Beat the Odds program, a local version of the national program begun by the Children’s Defense Fund.

Women of Achievement
1993

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Audrey May and Vickie Scarborough

Audrey May and Vickie Scarborough opened Memphis’ first feminist book store in September 1990 — but their vision has always been that it would be much more than a place to browse and buy books. May, the social worker, and Scarborough, the research chemist, named their enterprise “Meristem.” That literally means the cells of a plant that carry its memory and enable it to regenerate.

The name symbolizes the ability of women to “remember who we are and pass on information from generation to generation, to grow and flourish,” Audrey says. Vickie adds, “There’s a whole women’s culture out there that most mainstream, white, male society doesn’t know or put much value on. We want to make that available here.”

Meristem, in the redeveloping Cooper-Young neighborhood in Midtown, is a place where women and their friends can go for information, entertainment, socializing and networking. “We want to be inclusive, multi-cultural and to reach out to men, women, gays, lesbians, families, the ecology movement and others,” the owners explain. “That’s why our tag line is ‘Books and More for Women and Their Friends.’”

In addition to an inventory of books on women’s history, feminist theory, parenting, sex, body imaging — plus “non-sexist, non-racist, non-homophobic” children’s books and more — they offer an outlet for women’s crafts, jewelry and art.

In its two years, Meristem has become a place where women artists and authors display their talents. It is a gathering place for local women writers, for women planning National Women’s History Month events, for book discussions and music.

A one nominator said, “Audrey and Vickie have not only begun to achieve their vision, but are also nurturing the visions of other women.”

Women of Achievement
1992

VISION
for a woman whose sensitivity to women’s needs
led her to tremendous achievements for women:

Patricia Howard

Patricia Howard has a vision for the girls of Memphis. She sees them reaching womanhood with the knowledge and skills they need to live successful lives.

Patricia began at Girls, Inc. in 1966 as a work-study college student and rose through the ranks to become executive director in 1978. She has learned through her years that the first step towards change is the ability to envision that change, and she has worked hard to give young women the tools with which to do that. Young women participating in Girls, Inc. learn that they can make choices about their futures. She emphasizes that decisions they make now (staying in school, getting a good education, developing employment skills) will make a difference in their lives. She stresses the importance of taking responsibility for oneself and one’s actions.

Patricia considers it a personal challenge to take this vision to women so that they know they have a responsibility to the girls in this community, and to motivate them to act to improve the futures of younger women by raising funds to implement programs and serving as role models and mentors. To accomplish this, she has worked closely with Provida, a national support group for Girls, Inc.

Realizing that programs for young women were not receiving equitable funding, Patricia helped organize the Women’s Funding Forum, whose purpose is to increase the community’s awareness for the need to support services for girls and women. While working with the general community, the group specifically targets women and woman-owned businesses.

To help more people share her vision of helping young women reach maturity with as many skills and options as possible, she has been an energetic participant in Memphis community and civic life. She has been active in Leadership Memphis, the IBM Community Executive Program, the Girls’ Club of America Board of Directors, the Bethany Home Board of Directors, and the Community Day Care and Comprehensive Social Services Association.

Patricia has long been active in women’s groups. In 1977 she was a founding member of the Coalition for Choice, a community-based group that lobbied to maintain reproductive rights. She was a team member and planner for the 1982 Women in the Community, an NEH grant through Radcliffe College, which produced a series of programs on the history of Memphis women. And in 1984 she was present at the brain-storming session where Women of Achievement was born.

In the words of her nominators, Patricia Howard is “a special person; her vision for Girls, Inc. — and every one of the girls who she serves — has made Memphis a better place to live.”

Patricia Howard passed away on March 5, 2019. Read more about her legacy here.