'Women know how to do the work, and get it done.' 6 Columbus women achieving greatest
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.
Women are being propelled to soar by other women in this city, region and state.
That inspires Patrice Palmer.
"I feel a genuine sisterhood among women here," Palmer, CEO of Chosen 4 Change, told me during "Women Achieving," the most recent installment in this newspaper's virtual and in-person Columbus Conversations series. "I just see a sisterhood willing to open the door for other sisters not because you come from certain families or certain sides of the track or you got everything together, but because you're a woman in need of my support and my help."
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Palmer is among the six women who will be honored April 27 as 2023 YWCA Columbus Women of Achievement.
She and the other inductees — Ohio 10th District Court of Appeals Judge Laurel Beatty Blunt; Marilyn Brown Consulting CEO Marilyn Brown, a former Franklin County commissioner; Alternative Auto Care President Chris Cozad; attorney and NBC4 news anchor Colleen Marshall and independent artist and curator Bettye J. Stull — shared advice, insight and hopes during the Women Achieving conversation.
As the YWCA says, they are women who "advocate for all" and "pave and protect the way forothers." That spirit shows in this year's recipients.
During the conversation, Brown said she is inspired by the potential of women.
"There's so many of us and we all have so much to give. You talk about what drives us and it's the work. Women know how to do the work, and get it done," she said. "There's so many women who do the work day in and day out. We're the ones that get it done. There's no doubt about it, there's a future in Columbus for women who get the work done."
The complete discussion can be viewed on Dispatch.com as well as the newspaper's Facebook page and YouTube channel.
Below are excerpts.
The Columbus Dispatch is a sponsor of the 2023 YWCA Women of Achievement lunch to be held 11:45 a.m. Thursday, April 27 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center. Doors open at 11 a.m. Tickets are available at ywcacolumbus.org.
What does it mean to you to be a YWCA Woman of Achievement?
Bettye Stull
"It is rewarding. It is just incredible to know that you're being recognized for a lifetime of working in the community with a commitment to serve youth and of course, my main objective is art. I'm just thrilled to be among all of those women who have come before me and those who have been inducted into the YMCA Women of Achievement."
Colleen Marshall
" I'm really honored to be included with women who have made such a difference in the community in so many different ways. This class of women represents the legal, the retail, the art community, activist community... Just to be included among them for me is personally an honor as well as to (join) the academy of women who have come before all of us."
Chris Cozad
"I am particularly excited to be representing two communities of women that have not always been represented in Women of Achievement. That would be the women in non-traditional jobs area — as a woman in the automotive industry, there are not a lot of us working in the in the automotive field — and also as an out lesbian. It speaks to me to the respect that the Y has for the true diversity of our community. It's an honor and I appreciate it a lot."
What impact has mentorship played in your life?
Laurel Beatty Blunt
"I have been mentored and I mentor... My mentors have not always looked like me. Particularly in a male-dominated profession, you can't always find someone who looks like you. So, I do think that people should be open to being mentored by people who are different than them.
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I would also say that I have been mentored and I mentor in the sense that people have mentioned my name in rooms, and I have not even been there. If they saw an opportunity that they thought that I would be good for, mentioning my name. I try and do the same for women who are a little bit younger than me. The only thing I ask in return is that they find someone that they can do that to. So that way it keeps rolling."
Bettye J. Stull
I have mentored perhaps hundreds of youths during my stay in recreation and parks and also as a curator working at the King Arts Complex. I'm reminded of all the young people who were junior docents the first in the city of Columbus. These young people were so eager to learn about art, but not only art. It was lifting their self-esteem. Giving them guidance. Making them assure of themselves that they could maneuver in this life...
More:Columbus artists and mentors
It is rewarding when young people come up to me and say: 'Ms. Stull, I didn't like you. I didn't remember what you were telling me. I didn't understand, but now I do. Now I do because I'm an adult and I have a family. And all of these things that you were telling me, I listened. It's very rewarding to me and I'm using them to pass on to my children'."
The community is growing. What role would you like women to play in Columbus' future?
Chris Cozad
"They should play any role they want to do. Nothing should stand between them and their success. I think that's one of the messages of Women of Achievement. Every woman can achieve, and we need to support each other. We need to support other women. We need to support young women coming up so that they can have the kinds of success and wonderful careers and lives that we've had the opportunity to have."
Marilyn Brown
"It's incredibly important that women support other women doing what they want to do. We shouldn't make assumptions about what people want to do. We should find out what people want to do and support them to be whatever they want be... Any woman that doesn't support another woman, I think it's just an awful thing. I think we need to support one another, doing whatever we want to do."
Colleen Marshall
"There was a time — I'm old enough to remember, some of us are — there was this belief that if there's a table, there's room for one woman at the table. And it put women in a very competitive environment needlessly. Just last week, I happened to do a story of what they call the ladies' gallery at the Statehouse. I think that's a misnomer.
I think they should call it the women's gallery because (ladies' gallery) sounds like women were sitting around having tea during the suffrage movement.
And as I was reading some of the bios of the women down there, it was remarkable that the right to vote was passed in 1920. The first election, six women were elected: four to the House, two to the Senate. And for 100 years leading up to that, there were women fighting for criminal reform, for social justice, for taking care of homeless children, fighting for the right to vote, fighting through the Civil War — being on the home front and keeping things going during the Civil War.
So, when you think about it, women have always been leaders in this community. We just were not part of "history," not the written history.
We were there. We were doing the work and I agree with Chris, we just have to let women do what they do naturally, which is help lead and help shape the future of this city.
Laurel Beatty Blunt
I would encourage younger women to consider history. When you look at history, as Colleen stated, women didn't even get the right to vote until 1920. Even then, women of color were often still excluded from that right.
But if you look back at history, the resilience of women, their persistence and fighting for their rights has led to some change.
And when you look back, even if there have been some steps backwards, there are still two steps forward.
I hope that younger women look at our class and understand the fights that women have had in order to assert our rights — to not look at that as the cup half empty because you can look at that as the cup half full and appreciate the shoulders upon which you stand and let that encourage you to create an even better world than what you grew up in.
You are admired by many, what would you like people to know about the real you?
Patrice Palmer
I'm a person that embraces the good, the bad, the ugly — my past, my present, and my future. I'm a person of dignity, value and worth because I accept who I am — the total me.
What I want people to know about me is that I don't quit. I get knocked down sometimes. Sometimes I lose, but I get back up. I bounce back up and I fight more. I fight for the rights of people, of humanity.
What I want them to remember about me is, that no matter what award or recognition, it's about the work for humanity. It's about enhancing the quality of someone else's life. It's not about Patrice. It's about my assignment for my higher power, whom I choose to call God, and doing exactly what he's given me to do.
That is to be a repairer of the breach, to help someone in need without judgment without wanting something back, just being who I am and being authentic as I work with people in our community, whether it's (for) legislation, whether it's families, whether it's addiction, whether it's criminal justice."
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.
@1AmeliaRobinson on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: 6 Columbus women achieving great things for the community
