News
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
WOST Student Named Rankin Scholar for 2009
Kellirae Boann, a Women’s Studies major, is one of eighty women chosen nationally as a Jeannette Rankin Foundation Scholar for 2009.
The Jeannette Rankin Foundation, headquartered in Athens, Georgie, awards scholarships to mature, low-income women who are seeking to change their lives through education. From an initial scholarship of $500, the Foundation has grown in its giving ability over the years to its current 80 scholarships of $2000 each for the last two years. Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded over $1 million to over 600 women. Fifty-eight percent of the recipients of an award have been the first people in their families to get a college education.
The Foundation was created through a $16,000 bequest from Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress in 1916. Rankin, who earned a BS in Biology from the University of Montana in 1902, worked to advance the cause of women’s suffrage. Elected as a Republican from Montana, Rankin served two widely-spaced terms in the House of Representatives, from 1917-1919 and 1941-43. As a pacifist, she voted against the United States entering both World War I and World War II; each of these votes cost her re-election. Between her first and second terms in Congress, she served as a lobbyist in Washington, working particularly on issues of infant and maternal health care reform. She was founding Vice President of the American Civil Liberties Union and a founding member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
