My niece has been doing some family research and ran across this photo of me from our high school yearbook, I believe. I was President of the Leaders Club my senior and this is a photo of the officers. Leaders Club members were female athletes who would assist the Physical Education staff with various tasks around the gym. I’m dating myself, but this was only a few years after the passage of Title IX, and female athletes had to scrabble for recognition and acceptance. For a long time we weren’t part of the annual award event for athletes and to this day I remember how one of the male Phys Ed staff members asked me if I thought I deserved it when I was awarded the Pantherette Award for the best female athlete. I had no doubt I deserved it, and not just because Title IX said they had to do something like this since there was a Panther award. I’m so happy to see how things have changed for female athletes and hope we continue to make progress.
