‘I want to be an example for my children:’ Mother to graduate from Lehman College after 17 years of deferring
‘I want to be an example for my children:’ Mother to graduate from Lehman College after 17 years of deferring
May 29, 2023, 5:58pm Updated on May 29, 2023
By: News 12 Staff
A mother will be walking across the stage at Lehman College this week and earning a bachelor’s degree after nearly 17 years of deferring.
When Fatema Mia was a young girl, she had big plans for her future.
“I was thinking one day when I grow up, I will be a doctor,” she says. “I didn’t think about marriage and stuff, I was? just always think about studying.”
However, Mia says plans changed when she was 15 and arranged to be married in Bangladesh and then immigrated to America at 20.
“I had to stop it because of family obligations,” she says. “taking care of the mother-in-law, the father-in-law, the home, everything, the children.”
But Mia’s dream of attending college never escaped her mind. She says she registered for school in 2006, before she stopped to raise her kids.
Then in 2017 she re-enrolled. Now, she’s just days away from being a graduate of Lehman College with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and childhood education.
When the mother takes a walk down the stage Thursday morning, she says her three children will be right there rooting her on.
“I want to be an example for my children, to show them it is never too late,” she says. “My daughter always says, ‘I’m proud of you, mom.’”
Mia is a Jeannette Foundation Scholar Grant recipient. The Jeannette Rankin Foundation provides unrestricted Scholar Grants to students across the nation who identify as women or nonbinary, are 35 and older, and demonstrate financial need. To learn more about funding opportunities visit rankinfoundation.org.
Gail is an Athens native who served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in South India. She has been a writer and an activist for Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and against War since her teen years. Gail was the first woman elected chair of the Clarke County Democratic Committee. She earned degrees at the University of Georgia studying Twentieth Century Revolution and Decolonization. Gail wrote the stanza of the UGA Alma Mater that, finally, added women to the song.
My mother was one of those people who others confided in and leaned on. She was whip smart, no nonsense and could read someone from ten paces before they knew what was happening. This served her well as life presented its challenges.
Elizabeth Ann Mims was born in 1925, just before the Depression hit. She grew up learning the important lessons of helping others and banding together as a community. Her two brothers served in WWII, the oldest one flying the lead plane on D-Day. The other brother was an intelligence officer in North Africa, shot off his horse and survived by the grace of a native clan who nursed him back to health.
Betty’s folks were not the faint-hearted kind. They knew the value of a good day’s work and had the grit to face the hard times and the good humor to see ahead to a better day.
Back in her day, kids graduated from high school at the tender age of 16. Betty did the same as the valedictorian of Miller County High and went on to study at Andrew College about an hour away in Cuthbert, GA. She did two important things when she turned 18 – she graduated from Andrew (a two-year college) and she married her sweetheart, Clifford Jones.
They settled and had a family (my brother first and then me). My father was one of the largest farmers in the area, not because he owned huge amounts of land, but because he would farm any land he could relegate to sow. He worked very hard and was also the star of the local theater group’s plays every year. He taught every high schooler who wanted to learn how to water ski in the summers. He was quite the bon vivant.
But, in 1961, when my mother was just 35, my father was killed at age 37 in a farm accident.What was she to do? There were two children to raise, a farm to run and no more Clifford.
But daddy had done something very timely just a few months before his tragic death. A friend who was new to the insurance business talked him into reluctantly buying a $10,000 life policy.
This insurance policy became my mother’s version of a Jeannette Rankin Scholarship. Betty was able to go back to school, get her degree in Education and secure a teacher’s certification. She chose this profession so that she could be home with us kids in the summers.
She taught 5th grade for several years and then math and science in middle school. But, she worked with older kids, she saw that many were struggling with various issues that were impeding their success. The school in rural South Georgia had no counselor.
It was then that she decided to go back to school to get her Master’s in Counseling. And, after not too many more years, she went on to achieve her 6-year degree in School Psychology at the University of Georgia. She was then able to help hundreds of youths better find their way, through whatever challenges they faced.
When Betty retired from education, she became involved with the other end of the age spectrum, working on aging services issues. She was elected a senator for her district to the Silver Haired Legislature, where she spearheaded legislation to enhance senior services, especially in rural areas where she lived.
Even as she reached her own golden years, well into her 90s, she encouraged young women who worked at her retirement facility to reach higher and take advantage of educational opportunities. Education was her life’s work. And it sustained her and her family through turbulent times. She was keen to pass along that message of hope.
I’m unspeakably proud and grateful to have had Betty Murrah as my mother and mentor.
She truly had a positive impact, one that we want to continue.
Our family is honored to establish the Betty Ann Murrah Endowed Scholarship with the Jeannette Rankin Foundation.
We hope that many more women can rise and thrive with Betty’s help.
(Nancy) Katherine Litsey Woosley was born in 1906 in Grayson County, Kentucky, and grew up on working farms, where for the first 50 years of her life they had no running water or electricity. Like her mother before her, she chose education as her calling, becoming a teacher and spending decades serving students across central Kentucky. Beginning in the 1920s and continuing through the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, Katherine taught in a series of one-room schoolhouses.
Katherine believed deeply in the power of education. She championed her children’s education at every step and modeled lifelong learning herself, studying part-time for many years as a commuting student at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green. With that same spirit, she would have been proud of the determination and promise represented by Rankin Scholars today.
Marthe Marie Froeliger Ereminas Endowed Scholar Grant
Given by Kimberly Reeve
This endowed fund is in honor of my mother, Marthe Marie Froeliger Ereminas. She knew from an early age that she wanted to be a teacher and completed her bachelor’s in teaching at what was then Danbury State Teacher’s College, where she made life-long friends who celebrated their graduation with an epic trip to Europe. She later earned a Master’s in Education.
Mrs. Ereminas, as she was known by her hundreds of students, taught briefly in Litchfield, CT before getting married and settling down in Harwinton, CT, where she spent over 30 years teaching elementary school, primarily fifth grade. She firmly believed that every child could – and should – love learning, and she made it her life’s mission to help every child gain an enthusiasm for reading and learning, often spending hours before and after school time with students who struggled. She changed the lives of many through education and left a legacy that is hard to replicate.
Empowerment wasn’t a term that my mom would have used to describe herself, but that’s exactly what she was did. I can think of no better way to honor my sweet mother’s legacy than to establish an endowed fund that can help other women find and pursue their true calling – and empower others in the process.
The Mary Hepburn and Genie Hayes Scholar Grant for Teacher Education
Funded by Valerie Hepburn and David Hayes
The Mary Hepburn and Genie Hayes Scholar Grant is a restricted, renewable scholar grant focused on supporting students who are seeking degrees in teacher education. The scholarship is funded by Valerie Hepburn and David Hayes to honor their mothers, strong women with different life experiences, each of whom believed in the transformative power of education and life-long learning.
Mary Zoghby Hepburn was born in 1932, in Middletown, New York. As the daughter of recent immigrants to the United States, she was proud of her Lebanese American heritage. Mary earned her bachelor’s degree from Drew University, Madison, NJ; her master’s degree at the University of Iowa; and her doctorate from Florida State University. In 1969, she joined the faculty in the College of Education at the University of Georgia, ultimately becoming one of first women to earn the rank of full professor at UGA. Her scholarship and service focused on civic education and the social sciences. Mary was active in state, national, and international research consortia dedicated to advancing the fields of civic education, public inquiry, and service learning. Her work took her to Argentina, Germany, Hungary, and Ukraine, where she made an impact and life-long friends. Mary, along with her best friend and husband, Larry, and their colleagues at the Vinson Institute, authored Georgia’s definitive textbooks on state and local government along with many handbooks and research studies for public officials. Mary passed away in September 2022.
Mary Zoghby Hepburn
Genie Holley Hayes
Genie Holley Hayes was born in South Alabama in 1923. Her childhood was framed by the Great Depression. As she remembered it, everyone worked from “can to can’t.” She grew up to love reading, passionately, and until her last days, even while suffering with macular degeneration, she read or listened to every book the regional library could obtain for her. Genie graduated from high school in the early 1940s, got married and immediately went to work. During World War II, she worked in the Brunswick, Georgia Liberty Shipyard as a true “Rosie the Riveter.” Her husband and life-partner, Dewey, served the country in the Navy. Following the war, the family moved to Pelham, Georgia, and Genie began her decades-long profession as a bookkeeper at a textile plant, where she remained until her retirement. She grew up during challenging and turbulent times, when economic and educational opportunities for women were limited, yet she found joy in her career and her community. Genie valued family, friends, laughter, learning, and service to others. She reflected in a letter to her son, “I have learned the hard way that one can do anything that love demands.” Genie passed away in March 1997.
When a friend told me about the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, I knew I had to learn more. What an extraordinary force of nature she was—suffragist, peace activist, advocate for workers’ rights, reformer, and a driving force behind the 19th Amendment. Her life was proof that education and conviction can change the world. Through the friends and supporters who carry her work forward, her vision of a better future, especially for women, continues.
I understood that vision early, even if I didn’t yet have the words for it. As the daughter of a single mother in the 1950s, I saw firsthand how critical it was for a woman to be educated and employable. My mother was a registered nurse. The pay wasn’t generous, but it was steady. Because of her training, there was always food on the table and shelter from the storm.
Mom and Sally in Florida. She taught me to swim in the ocean.
When I was four, my mother enrolled in a university program to become a nurse anesthetist. She was determined to improve her skills and expand her opportunities. But determination alone wasn’t enough. The cost of tuition—combined with the expense of childcare—forced her to leave the program before graduating. Education was within reach, but just out of grasp. That loss stayed with her, and it stayed with me.
My mother died on March 14, 2024—Pi Day. 3.14, an irrational number whose decimal goes on forever. It feels like the perfect metaphor for her life. She taught me the value of learning and the importance of friendships.
When you help a woman improve her life, she brings a community with her. Education opens doors and extends possibilities. My mother’s legacy didn’t end with her life—it continues through those coming after her.
Congratulations to Rozy Park, the Rankin Foundation Volunteer of the Year. Rozy is currently Rankin’s Chair of the Board of Directors. She has served as a board member for the past five years, as a Volunteer Application Reader, and as a GREAT FORCE for Rankin Scholars in many ways.
Rozy has a particular passion for the Rankin Foundation because of her belief in the importance of education for women. She cares deeply about creating a supportive community that helps individuals achieve their goals, a crucial part of Rankin’s mission of transforming futures through education. She has a unique connection to the Foundation as the daughter-in-law of Gail Dendy, one of the Rankin Foundation’s Founders. Rozy has championed the Rankin mission by building a vibrant community in the Cincinnati area, engaging volunteers and donors, and spreading the word about Rankin Scholars in the Tri-State area. We are ever so grateful for her leadership and support.
“I’m so grateful for the example of great leadership by the Founding Mothers and I’m inspired by the grit and determination of our scholars. I love the unity of the mission and the staff and volunteers. Thanks for this recognition!” -Rozy Park
Rozy Park
April 2nd proclaimed Jeannette Rankin Day, honoring first woman elected to Congress
Gov. Greg Gianforte proclaimed April 2nd as Jeannette Rankin Day in honor of the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She first took office on April 2nd, 1917.
Apr 2nd 2025 | Zach Volheim
Jeannette Rankin of Missoula first took office on April 2, 1917.
MISSOULA — Gov. Greg Gianforte proclaimed April 2nd as Jeannette Rankin Day in honor of the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress.
She first took office on April 2nd, 1917.
“Jeannette Rankin dedicated her life to pursuing equality for all Americans,” Gov. Gianforte said. “By becoming the first woman elected to Congress — before women even had the right to vote —s he broke barriers and paved the way for future generations of women leaders.”
Born in Missoula in 1880 and the oldest of seven, Jeannette Rankin was the first woman in U.S. history to be elected to the U.S. Congress.
Rankin was known for her dedication to peace during her time in Congress, voting against the United States entering World War I and World War II.
She didn’t stop working after she left Congress either, organizing thousands of women across the country to march against the Vietnam War in 1968 at the age of 87.
The legacy of Jeannette Rankin stands today, with the Jeannette Rankin Foundation providing scholarships to women aged 35 and older to complete their college degrees.
“Jeannette Rankin is so important for us all to remember and to know because her impact continues today. She continues to inspire leaders of all kinds, not only women but of all kinds who want to be, to give back to their community,” said Jeannette Rankin Foundation advisory board member Lori Warden.
Gianforte proclaims April 2 ‘Jeannette Rankin Day’
Gianforte proclaims April 2 ‘Jeannette Rankin Day’ Photo: Office of Governor Gianforte
Apr 2nd 2025 | NBC Montana Staff
HELENA, Mont — Governor Gianforte proclaimed April 2, 2025 as ‘Jeannette Rankin Day’ in Montana.
“Jeannette Rankin dedicated her life to pursuing equality for all Americans,” Gov. Gianforte said. “By becoming the first woman elected to Congress—before women even had the right to vote—she broke barriers and paved the way for future generations of women leaders.”
The following was sent out by the Office of Governor Gianforte:
Governor Greg Gianforte today celebrated the legacy of Jeanette Rankin by proclaiming April 2, 2025 “Jeannette Rankin Day” in Montana.
“Jeannette Rankin dedicated her life to pursuing equality for all Americans,” Gov. Gianforte said. “By becoming the first woman elected to Congress—before women even had the right to vote—she broke barriers and paved the way for future generations of women leaders.”
Rankin was born in 1880 on her family’s ranch in Missoula County. A leader of the women’s suffrage movement, Rankin led the effort to make Montana the 11th state to grant women the right to vote. First elected to Congress in 1916, Rankin was the only woman to vote on legislation to give women the right to vote, a step among many that ultimately led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920.
April 2 coincides with the day in 1917 when Rankin was sworn into office as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
At the ceremony, Karen Sterk, CEO of the Jeannette Rankin Foundation, celebrated the proclamation as a step toward recognizing the impact of Rankin’s leadership nationally, saying, “The Jeannette Rankin Foundation is proud to continue Jeannette’s legacy. Jeannette Rankin is a name all Americans should know, and we are grateful to Montana for honoring her great life and impact. Jeannette Rankin continues to inspire all of us to champion women in their pursuit of a better future, where they are the leaders of their own destiny.”
The Jeannette Rankin Foundation, founded in 1976 with a bequest from Rankin’s estate, awards education grants to nontraditional women students seeking their post-secondary education. To date, the nonprofit has awarded more than 2,539 Rankin Scholar Grants nationwide, with 49 currently awarded across the Montana University System and all seven Tribal Colleges.
