WEST PALM BEACH — Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and chief executive officer of the Atlanta center created to honor his legacy, will deliver the keynote speech at the 2013 Women of Excellence Awards Sept. 28.
The event presented by the West Palm Beach Alumnae chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., and the nonprofit Delta Heritage Foundation, will honor seven Palm Beach County women and one organization for their outstanding service and achievements to enrich the lives of individuals in Palm Beach County.
The Women of Excellence Awards will be held at 6:30 p.m. at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. Tickets are $75, and proceeds are used for scholarships. For tickets, call 561-758-1277 or 561-366-3020 or visit wpbdst.org
Awards will be presented in the areas of the arts, education, business executive, social action, humanitarian, health and wellness and Keeper of the Torch. A Fortitude Award also will be presented to an outstanding member of the sorority. The honorees were selected by a committee after a formal nomination process.
King, known as a motivating and life-changing orator, was appointed CEO of The Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change in January 2012. Her mother, the late Coretta Scott King, founded the center in 1968 after the civil rights leader was assassinated.
She is the founder of Be A King, whose mission is to rebrand and re-image generations of people to elevate the way they think, act, live and lead. In 2007 she launched the first Be A King Summit on the campus of Alabama State University in Montgomery, Ala.
The author of Hard Questions, Heart Answers, King holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from Spellman College and Master of Divinity and Doctor of Law degrees from Emory University. She also holds an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Wesley College.
The honorees and their awards are:
• Trina Slade-Burks (Arts), co-founder and owner of ATB Fine Arts and Designers, who alongside her husband, artist Anthony Burks, integrates art and education into culturally enriching programs for youth and adults.
• Barbara Carey-Shuler (Business), owner of Shuler’s Memorial Chapter.
• Camille Coleman (Education), Area 4 superintendent for the Palm Beach County School District, who moved up the ranks as a result of her ability to inspire students, teachers and parents to excel.
• Eugenia Millender (Health), clinical director for Florida Atlantic University’s Diabetes Research and Education Center located in the Palm Healthcare Pavilion in West Palm Beach, named Nurse of the Year in 2011 by the Palm Healthcare Foundation.
• Estella Pyfrom (Humanitarian), who used $900,000 of her own
retirement money and
investments to create Estella’s Brilliant Bus, a mobile unit equipped with 17 computer work stations and designed to improve access to computer instruction and educational programs to underserved youth. She has gained national media attention and this year was named a CNN Hero for her work.
• Alberdia Floyd (Social Action), who was the first African American president of the American Legion Auxiliary for the State of Florida.
• Genesis Community Health (Keeper of the Torch), a nonprofit organization led by director DeAnna Warren that promotes and provides health to people who lack access to the healthcare system.
• Alma Horne (The Fortitude Award), a member of Delta Sigma Theta, a
renowned educator who has dedicated more than 46 years of service to the sorority.
Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc., founded in 1913 by 22 students at Howard University, is a public service sorority of more than 200,000 predominantly black college educated women in more than 900 chapters in the United States, England, Japan, Germany, the Virgin Islands, Bermuda, the Bahamas and the Republic of Korea.
The West Palm Beach Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta, established in 1948, has 200 members.
No Comment