Women’s Hall of Fame to honor 2 United Methodists in 2005

A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (right) talks with Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher in this 2003 file photo.

NEW YORK (UMNS)-Two United Methodists are among the 10 women being inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2005.

U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., and Betty Bumpers, former first lady of Arkansas, will be honored, along with Rita Colwell, the first woman and first biologist to lead the National Science Foundation, and Maya Lin, the renowned architect who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington.

Six historical figures-Florence Ellinwood Allen, Ruth Fulton Benedict, Mother Marianne Cope, Patricia Locke, Blanche Stuart Scott and Mary Burnett Talbert-also will be inducted.

The accomplishments of the inductees demonstrates the "vision of women’s potential" expressed by the women and men who convened the first women’s rights convention in 1848, according to Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, hall president. The hall of fame ceremonies will take place Oct. 7-8, 2005.

The honorees join 207 women who have been inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame since its founding in 1969 in Seneca Falls, N.Y., the site of the 1848 convention.

Clinton and her family were active members of First United Methodist Church in Park Ridge, Ill., as she grew up. The 1973 graduate of Yale Law School continued to be active in the denomination and was a member of First United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Ark., when her husband, Bill Clinton, was state governor. After Bill Clinton was elected president of the United States, they and daughter Chelsea attended Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington.

Hillary Clinton was elected U.S. senator from New York in November 2000, the only first lady ever elected to the Senate. She is the first New York senator to serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee and also serves on the Senate committees for environment and public works, and health, education, labor and pensions.

Her book, Living History, released in June 2003, has sold more than 1.5 million copies in the United States and another 1.5 million copies abroad.

Bumpers, who lives in Bethesda, Md., is a United Methodist and another former first lady of Arkansas. Her husband, Dale Bumpers, served as that state’s governor from 1970 to 1974, then went on to a 24-year career in the U.S. Senate.

In Arkansas, Betty Bumpers worked to improve the state’s low rate of childhood immunization, helping to develop a system for immunizations that became a national model. She continued that work in Washington, teaming with first lady Rosalynn Carter. Their advocacy efforts led to the first comprehensive childhood immunization initiative of the federal government, launched in 1977, according to the National Institutes of Health.

Bumpers and Carter also started a campaign in 1991, called "Every Child by Two," which worked to ensure that all children in America are placed on an immunization schedule from birth to age 2. The National Institutes of Health is the home of the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center.

The National Women’s Hall of Fame is a not-for-profit organization that sponsors educational activities, special exhibits and events designed to increase public awareness of the diverse contributions that women make to society.

*Bloom is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in New York.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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