Seven nominated for Career Woman of
the Year:
Brunch in their honor scheduled Saturday at the Grand
Hotel in Point Clear
By Staff Reporter, Mobile Register, Aug. 23, 1993.
POINT CLEAR Seven Baldwin County women
have been nominated for
Gayfers Jubilee Career Club's Career Woman of the Year.
The nominees will be honored at a brunch Saturday
at Marriott's
Grand Hotel in Point Clear. They were selected based on their
career
achievement and civic, social and community involvement.
The nominees, from whom the Career Woman of the
Year will be selected,
include Sheila Hodges, Betty Ruth Speir, Alicia Kay Sellars, Rita
McNair, Ruth Underwood, Louise Taylor and Diana Snow.
The theme of Saturday's 10 a.m. brunch will be
Follow Your
Yellow Brick Road,'' and will feature a presentation by Sharleen
Smith, manager of training for the Alabama Personnel Department.
The event will also feature a Carol Little fashion show, with
Carol
Little representative Lydia McCaroll.
Tickets are $25 and are available at Gayfers
Jubilee Customer
Service Desk or fashion office, and from any Career Club member.
Tickets must be purchased in advance.
Proceeds from the event will be donated to the
Baldwin County
Mammography Fund, for the benefit of women who need mammograms
but cannot afford them.
Ms. Smith has been with the Alabama Personnel
Department since
the establishment of a central training division more than three
years ago. She coordinates and conducts seminars, conferences
and workshops in the areas of management, legal and motivational
issues.
Her responsibilities also include consulting
in personnel
systems and processes such as performance appraisal, employee
discipline, job analysis, classification and management audits.
She has written several manuals and currently
writes a monthly
motivational column in two state journals based in Montgomery.
Biographies of the Career Woman candidates include:
Sheila
Hodges
Mrs. Hodges is co-owner and managing partner
of Meyer Real Estate
in Gulf Shores, and has been a Baldwin County resident since 1976.
She earned her real estate sales license in 1978 and completed the
Graduate of Realtors Institute series in 1980.
She is a lifetime member of the Baldwin County
Board of Realtors'
Million Dollar Club. In 1986 she became a licensed instructor for
the Alabama Brokers Council School of Real Estate.
Meyer Real Estate operates a rental division
of approximately
400 units and a staff of 30, a sales division with 25 full-time
agents,
a staff of five and sales volume in excess of $30 million,
plus a housekeeping
company that employs more than 60 people.
Mrs. Hodges is chairman of the board of the Alabama
Gulf Coast
Area Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Alabama Gulf Coast
Convention and Visitors Bureau. She is also on the Foley Board of
Adjustments and Appeals.
She is a past member of the Community Housing
Resource Board,
and of the board of directors of the Orange Beach and South Baldwin
Chambers of Commerce. She is married to Ernie Hodges and has four
children. Betty Ruth Speir
Dr. Speir has been in the private practice of
gynecology in Fairhope
since 1982. She is also on the clinical faculty of the University
of South Alabama College of Medicine's Department of Obstetrics
and Gynecology, and on the part-time faculty of the Department
of General Surgery.
She is the first woman to serve on the medical
school's faculty.
She received the Physicians Recognition Award
in 1981, 1988
and 1991 and a certificate of recognition for outstanding contribution
and service to the Foundation for Women's Health in Alabama in 1989.
In 1991, the Fairhope doctor served as a chairman of the Grand Summer
Ball Thomas Hospital Benefit. She is a fellow of the American College
of Obstetrics and Gynecologists, and a member of the Baldwin County
Medical Society, the Alabama Medical Association and the Southern
Medical Association. She was a founding member of the Jacobs' Foundation
for Women's Health in 1990.
ALICIA KAY SELLARS
Ms. Sellars is the owner of G&S Planning
in Daphne and is currently
enrolled at Emory University, where she will complete work for
her degree in Christian education.
She plans to continue her business and also work
as director
of Christian education in a local United Methodist Church.
She recently returned from a mission trip to
Zimbabwe, where
she taught intensive English to non-English speaking students
from across Africa. She was a lecturer at Africa University and
went through the United Methodist Volunteers in Missions.
While there, Ms. Sellars also worked part time
at an orphanage.
In the last 10 years, she has been employed as
director of children's
ministries, youth ministries and Christian education at various
United Methodist Churches in the Mobile District. Rita McNair
Mrs. McNair is owner and manager of The Gas Works
Antique Mall
and AntiqCare Distributors Inc. in Foley. She is secretary of the
Foley Area Antique Dealers Association and is a director of South
Baldwin Chamber of Commerce and the Gulf Coast Tourism Council.
A former elementary teacher and faculty member
of the University
of South Alabama College of Education, she served as director
of
education and training of the South Alabama Institute, a research
affiliate of USA.
Mrs. McNair is the author of articles and publications
on early
childhood development, effective parenting, vocational education
and training.
She also designed a child care worker training
program which
has been recognized as Alabama's outstanding program and has received
national recognition as an exemplary JTPA program.
She is also active politically, serving on the
National Democratic
Leadership Council and the Alabama Democratic Leadership Council.
Mrs. McNair is also chairman of the Baldwin County Democratic Executive
Committee and a member of the Alabama Democratic Executive Committee.
She is married to Don McNair and has three children.
Ruth Underwood
Mrs. Ruth Underwood is public health administrator,
responsible
for all Alabama Department of Public Health programs clinic,
home health, environmental and disease control in 13 south
Alabama
counties.
She has formerly served as a public health nutritionist
in Escambia
County, Fla., and for the Baldwin County Health Department.
Mrs. Underwood is president of the Baldwin County
Board of Education
and serves on the Alabama Department of Public Health's Strategic
Directions Task Force, Financial Management Task Force, Unified
Medical Records Committee and the Certified Public Managers Selection
Committee.
In March of this year, she received the Guy Tate
Award by the Alabama
Public Health Association for her contributions to public health.
Mrs. Underwood organized a cooperative effort
among local
hospitals, the county Extension Service and the Baldwin County
Health Department to bring cholesterol education programs to
Baldwin County. She also initiated efforts between the Health
Department and the school system to offer nutrition classes
to
help parents prepare children for school and assist them with
parenting
skills.
She is married to Victor Underwood and has three
children. Louise
Taylor
Mrs. Taylor is employed by the Baldwin County
Board of Education,
having served 20 years as a teacher and nine years as a guidance counselor
at Foley High School.
She organized and served as faculty sponsor of
the National
Junior Honor Society and also served as faculty sponsor for
the
Student Government Association and the student newspaper.
Mrs. Taylor was the American Field Service Liaison
for the school,
and coordinated Red Cross blood drives. She has served on the executive
board of the Foley High School PTA and has been named Teacher of the
Year.
Her community involvement includes service on
the Vulcan Scholarship
Committee, Jack Edwards Free Enterprise Committee and the Students
at Risk Committee.
Mrs. Taylor is a member and a former vestry member
of St. Peter's
Episcopal Church. Diana Snow
Dr. Snow is a partner and co-director of Bay
Area Psychotherapy
Associates, which has offices in Fairhope and Daphne. She recently
completed 20 years in private practice.
In April she spoke at the Governor's Conference
on Addictions
and Recovery, held in Birmingham.
She earned her Ph.D. in counselor education at
the University
of Alabama in 1981, with a major in community counseling and
minors
in clinical psychology, educational psychology, human development
and family life. She has served as an instructor at Springhill
College
in Mobile and as a mental health planning consultant for the
Baldwin
County Mental Health Project.
Additionally, she has been a counselor at the
Frank Kay Clinic
in Birmingham, and a psychologist at the University of Alabama
Medical School in Birmingham and at the state hospital in Tuscaloosa.
She is a member of the American Psychological
Association,
Society of Behavioral Medicine and the American Group Psychotherapy
Association. She is also an approved supervisor of the American
Association of Marriage and Family Therapy and a certified
clinical
member of the International Transactional Analysis Association.
The Fairhope psychologist is a member of the
Eastern Shore Chamber
of Commerce and of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Daphne.
This article reproduced with special permission
from the Mobile Register.
