Women's Committee of 100 honors eight community members
The Women’s Committee of 100 for Birmingham today honored eight people for outstanding service to the community at a luncheon at the Vestavia Country Club.
- Harry Brock Jr., the former chairman and CEO of Compass Bancshares who died in July of last year, was named the group’s Citizen of the Year.
- Kerri and Jeh Jeh Pruitt, co-founders of The Dannon Project — a nonprofit that provides former prisoners with career training, job search help and other support — received the Brother Bryan Prayer Point Award.
- Robert Smith, executive director for The Amelia Center grief counseling center at Children’s of Alabama hospital, received the Humanitarian Award.
- Linda Williams, director of the Artists on the Bluff arts center in Bluff Park, was given the Community Arts Award.
- Anne Mae Beddow, the founder of the Alabama Association of Nurse Anesthetists and the Southeastern Association of Nurse Anesthetists, received the Alabama Women in History Award posthumously.
- Elouise Wilkins Williams and Mary Louise Hodges, two former presidents of the Women’s Committee of 100, received emerita status with the organization for their many contributions over the years to the group, city and state.
The current president of the Women’s Committee of 100, Jeanna Westmoreland, thanked each individual for investing in the lives of others.
Here’s a bit more about each of the winners, based on biographies provided by the Women’s Committee of 100:
Harry Brock Jr. — Citizen of the Year
Brock grew up in Gadsden, served in the U.S. Navy and received a degree in business and commerce from the University of Alabama. He and two others founded Central Bank and Trust Co., which after aggressive growth and expansion into Texas later became Compass Bancshares. Brock served as chairman and CEO until his retirement in 1991. He also served as chairman of the board for the Business Council of Alabama, Samford University and many other civic organizations. He served on the Samford board of trustees for 53 years, and Samford chose to name its business school after him. He was known for having a vision for education and for pioneering new and innovative directions in business and in life.
Kerri and Jeh Jeh Pruitt — Brother Bryan Prayer Point Award
Jeh Jeh Pruitt is perhaps best known for his work as a TV journalist on WBRC Fox 6, but he and his wife, Kerri, in 1999 founded a nonprofit called the Dannon Project, which helps people transitioning out of prison find career training, jobs and additional support. The nonprofit was named after Pruitt’s brother, Dannon, who was killed by one of Pruitt’s high school classmates after the classmate got out of prison and was unable to turn his life around. Instead of complaining about what happened, the Pruitts decided to forgive the murderer and work to help other people make better decisions once they get out of prison. “We simply want to be a part of the solution,” Kerri Pruitt said. In the past 14 years, the Dannon Project has helped more than 6,000 former prisoners, and only about 50 of them have gone back to prison, Jeh Jeh Pruitt said.
Robert Smith — Humanitarian Award
Smith is responsible for the long-range planning and management of The Amelia Center, which provides professional grief counselors and support staff to parents and families grieving the death of a child. The organization also helps counsel children, teenagers and young adults through age 21 who are grieving the death of someone in their life. Smith has a master’s degree in community counseling and has been a guest lecturer at the University of Montevallo and Samford University. He also has presented at the National Symposium of Children’s Grief Support, worked in more than 40 schools and has experience in crisis intervention and suicide prevention through his work at a crisis center.
Linda Williams — Community Arts Award
Williams worked many years as director of community education for Hoover City Schools and had been retired for five months when she was called back to become director of the new Artists on the Bluff arts center in the old Bluff Park community school in Hoover. After much renovation and cleaning, the arts center opened in February 2011 with 15 rooms for art studios and classrooms. The facility also has a room for art seminars, lecturing and teaching via satellite.
Anne Mae Beddow — Alabama Women in History Award
Beddow attended the St. Vincent’s School of Nursing and the Lakeside Hospital School of Anesthesia in Cleveland, Ohio. She was inducted into the first unit of the Army Nurse Corps as a lieutenant in May 1918 and served as a pioneer nurse anesthetist in Italy. It was there that she developed the technique for administering sodium pentothal intravenously for major surgery patients. She was awarded the Victory Medal by the United States and two medals from the Italian government for her work with Italian soldiers. She founded the Alabama Association of Nurse Anesthetists and the Southeastern Association of Nurse Anesthetists and was a charter member of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists. She was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame this year and received numerous awards for her service to the Red Cross, First Methodist Church of Birmingham and international anesthesia organizations.
Elouise Wilkins Williams — Womens’s Committee of 100 Member Emerita
Williams was born in Pell City and obtained a bachelor of science degree from the University of Alabama and a master of science degree from Columbia University in New York. She was president of the American Lawyers Auxiliary and served in leadership positions with the organization for more than 20 years. She also was president of the Birmingham Bar Auxiliary and was on the board of directors of the Alabama State Association of Parliamentarians and the Birmingham Committee on Foreign Relations. She was a founding member of the Board of Overseers at Samford University and served as president of the Samford Auxiliary for four years and coordinator for more than 20 years. She has been president of the Birmingham Music Club Guild, Antiquarian Society of Birmingham and Mountain Brook Baptist Church Woman’s Missionary Union. She was president of the Women’s Committee of 100 from 1991 to 1993 and remains on the board of directors for the Alabama Men’s Hall of Fame.
Mary Louise Hodges — Women’s Committee of 100 Member Emerita
Hodges for more than 25 years volunteered as a tour guide for special visitors to Birmingham. In 1989, Mayor Richard Arrington designated her as “Official Volunteer Tour Guide of Birmingham.” She has been a Birmingham Woman of the Year, co-founder of the annual pageant for the Birmingham International Festival of Arts, president of the Alabama Phi Mu Alumnae Association, Samford University Alumna of the Year, president of the Samford University International Alumni Association, winner of the Boys Scouts of America Supporter Award, and board member of the Birmingham Arts Alliance, Greater Birmingham Convention and Visitors Bureau, Birmingham Music Club and the Birmingham Symphony. She served as president of the Women’s Committee of 100 from 1978 to 1980, leads the Quality Media Committee and for decades has opened the group’s luncheons with piano preludes.