Students, staff pay tribute to special women

The Celebration of Womanhood took place March 8 as students and faculty gathered in the Gallery giving tribute to mothers, grandmothers, and important women generally.

On display were exhibits and keepsake memorials of phenomenal women who changed lives by their mere presence and testimony of living.

Quinnet Momoh brought “Chi Chi,” a sweet snack, in memory of her grandmother. “It was her favorite snack, and she showed me how to make it,” she said.

Alhaja Adishetu Momah, Quinnet’s grandmother, was a Nigerian Princess born into a royal family. “She was a great cook and the palace loved her meals,” she said. Quinnet spoke very highly of her grandmother and spoke for family members, saying, “She loves her grandchildren.”

From Nigeria to right here in America, another awesome woman to be celebrated is Mildred Lope, the grandmother of North Lake student Orteca Nunley. “Strong, powerful, and inspirational” were the words Orteca used in her display to describe her grandmother. She also had some of her grandmother’s keepsakes on hand — candy and a cloth woven hanger — items that reminded Orteca of her.

“Everytime you change your clothes, it’s a new day,” said Orteca, reciting a saying that her grandmother instilled in her representing each day being a new day and that there is no repeating. She stressed the importance of her grandmother’s generosity and, how when everyone visited her, she would give away candy telling them, “Take more than one, baby, take more than one.”

Jean Mills, a nurse in the college’s Health Services office, paid tribute to her pastor’s wife, Annie Pearl Foster, with the words “I’m still here” displayed at her table.

“She is a praying woman of God and she will pray to the ‘depths of her soul,” said Mills proudly, describing Foster. “She survived breast cancer and believed in hope when all hope was gone.”

Both Mills and Foster support the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society.

What makes Foster stand out in her faith is the fact that she suffered the cancer in 1971 when there were no support groups, and the technology wasn’t what it is today. She has two healthy sons, eight grandchildren, and members of her congregation who love her dearly.

A “Dedication to Mum” is a touching poem that Norbert Osamor wrote for his late mother, Nkechi Osamor from Nigeria. She was a “soldier and a winner,” he said, and he wrote the poem shortly after she passed.

“I just started to write ideas and I wrote it just the way I felt,” said Norbert, who insisted he was not a writer. You be the judge. (Norbert’s poem appears at right.) Nancee Ott and Joanne Stewart displayed their table in honor of the late Grace Hopper, who rose to the challenges of programming the first computers.

“This is a great woman who created the compiler for COBOL Coding and coined the term “bug,” said Nancee. “She was on the front page of a magazine at the time for recognition on some of her significant findings.”

Hopper was the only mathematician to have a war ship named after her, and she used one of the first computers, UNIVAC I, that predicted the 1952 presidential election, and was used by the military.

The annual Celebration of Womanhood event was sponsored by Student Programs and Resources (SPAR) in honor of March’s Women in History Month.