Governor Rick Scott will soon select the 2011/2012 inductees into the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame from the list of ten finalists chosen by the Florida Commission on the Status of Women. The Governor will select up to three women for induction into the Hall of Fame, which recognizes and honors women who, through their works and lives, have made significant contributions to the improvement of life for women and for all citizens of the state of Florida. The Commission has determined that the following nominees exemplify the great diversity of women’s contributions to Florida life:

Dr. Ruth Alexander of Gainesville, a pioneer in the field of women’s sports.  She served as Chair of the Department of Physical Education for Women at the University of Florida (UF).  In 1972, she established the “Lady Gator Athletic” program, before this no opportunities existed for women to participate in intercollegiate athletics. This program is ranked in the top ten in America annually.   Under her leadership, the South Eastern Conference for University Women’s (SEC) competition and championships were organized.  In 1987, was promoted to Distinguished Professor an elite ranking that fewer than 10 women have ever received at UF. Dr. Alexander was the first woman appointed to the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports by President Nixon, and then reappointed by Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. In 1987, the National Association of Sport and Physical Education inducted her to its Hall of Fame.  Founding member of the Florida Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports and was appointed/reappointed to the Council by 4 different Governors.  She developed an exchange degree program in Sport Management between UF and the University of Loughborough in England.  She is the author of eight books, and she retired from UF after 36 years with the rank of Emeritus.

Elizabeth “Budd” Bell formerly of Tallahassee, worked 75 years to help Florida’s families, women and children. She was a dedicated advocate, teacher and mentor, who throughout her career, showed a commitment to those often unheard. Ms. Bell is credited with pioneering coordinated childcare legislation three decades ago in Florida, which led to many programs across the state.  In 1972, she founded Kids Incorporated of the Big Bend, an organization which currently serves over 4,000 children.  In addition to her child advocacy efforts, Ms. Bell also championed the needs of the elderly, mentally ill and victims of domestic violence. She worked to craft the landmark legislation known as the Baker Act which protects the rights of persons with mental illness in Florida.  Also, Ms. Bell was instrumental in creating programs for all persons with disabilities—specifically in the area of transportation.  This work led to programs like Dial-A-Ride, which provides mobility for persons who would not otherwise have any.

Jeanne Bochette of Ft. Myers is an acclaimed community leader who has contributed to the opportunity, education, and welfare of countless young women across the state during her 60 years of teaching, performing, and promoting dance of all genres. She has collaborated with the best of the best over the years, such as The Royal Ballet, Dance Alive!, and Miami City Ballet. In 1954, while her husband was stationed in Panama City, she opened up the first dance school in the region. Over the decades she taught the daughters, granddaughters, and even great-granddaughters of her first students at Studio Bochette. Still today, at almost 82 years old, she starts her day at dawn preparing her students’ lesson plans, and can be found well after dark reviewing the classes and doing the bookwork her business requires. Ms. Bochette is living proof of how the efforts of one person can make a difference in the lives of young women while elevating the cultural quality of life for all citizens around the state of Florida.

Vicki Bryant Burke of Jacksonville began working as a counselor with at-risk youth in a juvenile justice day treatment program in 1980 after moving to Florida. Through her counseling work, Ms. Burke experienced the juvenile justice system firsthand and found a system that was not designed for girls, nor effective in handling behavior problems with girls. As a result, Ms. Burke founded the PACE Center for Girls. In January 1985, PACE Center for Girls opened its doors with its first class of 10 girls referred by the Duval County courts. From that first center in Jacksonville, Ms. Burke led a statewide expansion to include PACE centers in Bradenton, Orlando, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Pensacola, and Tallahassee. Today PACE includes 17 centers throughout Florida, and it has helped over 29,000 girls find a pathway back to hope. Ms. Burke continues her advocacy work with girls and young women. Today she is senior staff at Operation New Hope, where she helps female ex-offenders transition back into the community, find meaningful work, and lead productive lives. Twenty-six years later, PACE is still the only statewide prevention and early intervention agency in the nation focused on girls and young women. Girls who had little hope and little belief in themselves now lead productive, engaged, and fulfilling lives, largely due to Ms. Burke’s pioneering work.

Elizabeth Fago of Palm Beach Gardens has maintained a passionate commitment to quality healthcare and has a proven track record as a developer and manager of healthcare properties. She is considered the largest rural nursing home operator in the United States. From a small investment in 1985, Ms. Fago grew Home Quality Management (HQM) into one of the largest, most highly regarded private healthcare companies in the country. At its peak, HQM operated 72 long-term care facilities, many of which were cited in the “Congressional Record for Quality of Care and Community Involvement”. Her newest venture is Palm Beach Partners, three state-of-the-art centers that integrate innovative health care, advanced technology, research, and development for post-acute healthcare in the 21st century. Ms. Fago is one of the earliest and strongest supporters of Scripps Florida, and was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush as a board member for Scripps Florida Funding Corporation. The Scripps Florida Library is named in her honor. For the last 10 years, Ms. Fago has provided for more than 20 high school and college students’ education at various universities throughout the country. She has also mentored high school girls in Palm Beach County. Ms. Fago lives by her motto: “Be tenacious and never let go of your dreams”.

Edna Hibel of Lake Worth is a nationally-acclaimed artist who has spent more than eight decades bringing warmth and compassion to people worldwide through her artwork and her heartfelt advocacy. She began painting at the age of nine and was educated at the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts. She won the prestigious Ruth B. Sturtevant Traveling Fellowship to study in Mexico, where she discovered a passion for painting young mothers and children. She and her family moved to South Florida in 1968 where she continued her work, becoming America’s best loved and most versatile artist. Since its inception in 1977, the Hibel Museum of Art, the only non-profit, public museum dedicated to the art of a living American woman, has been recognized as one of Palm Beach’s premier museums.  Ms. Hibel holds the distinction as the first and only American woman to receive the Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts, an honor bestowed only to those whose work constitutes a significant contribution to the artistic legacy of the world. The Hibel Museum of Art continues to grow and expand, featuring concerts and exhibitions by women, as well as one-act plays detailing the historical role of women in literature and other art forms. The Museum also recently opened a children’s summer art camp. Ms. Hibel is a shining example for others to follow through her passion for combining art education and humanitarianism.

Anne Briardy Mergen formerly of Miami was a pioneer in the field of women editorial cartoonists. Beginning in the mid 1930’s, she drew seven cartoons a week for more than twenty years. She and her family moved to Miami in 1926. With her talent and persistence, she convinced the editors that her work belonged on the editorial page. Her cartoons covered local, national, and worldwide subjects. With a bold and simple style, her work influenced and entertained thousands of readers daily. She brought awareness to many situations with her work, such as bringing attention to the need to preserve the Everglades before it became a park. Ms. Mergen’s cartoons appeared in The Atlanta Journal, The Dayton (Ohio) News, and the Miami Daily News. She received fan mail from several areas of the country including J. Edgar Hoover and Eleanor Roosevelt. Mrs. Roosevelt requested two of Ms. Mergen’s cartoons to hang in the Roosevelt Memorial Room in Hyde Park. During her career, Ms. Mergen produced more than 7,000 cartoons, many of which now reside in the Library of Congress, The Ohio State University Cartoon Research Library, and The Historic Museum of Southern Florida. Ms. Mergen had the courage to enter a field that had traditionally been a man’s territory, and her example has inspired other women to follow their dreams and venture off the beaten path.

Shannon Miller of Jacksonville is the most decorated American gymnast, male or female, in history. She is the only American to rank among the Top 10 All-time gymnasts and is the only female athlete to be inducted into the U.S. Olympics Hall of Fame ---- twice!!! (Individual in 2006 and Team in 2008). She has won an astounding 59 international and 49 national competition medals. Over half of these have been gold. She is the only U.S. gymnast to win two World All-Around titles. At the 1996 Olympic games, she led the “Magnificent Seven” to the U.S. Women’s first ever Team Gold, and for the first time for any American gymnast, she captured Gold on the balance beam. Ms. Miller holds a law degree from Boston College Law School. She founded the Shannon Miller Foundation, which is dedicated to fighting childhood obesity. In early 2011, Ms. Miller was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. Now cancer-free, she is a television host for Comcast and President of Shannon Miller Lifestyle. She continues to travel the country as a highly sought after motivational speaker and advocate for the health and wellness of women and girls. She feels that by sharing her story, she can encourage other women to make their health a priority.

Dr. Nilda (Nena) Peragallo of Miami is a renowned research scientist in the areas of HIV/AIDS risk reduction and prevention, health disparities, and culturally competent interventions with Latina populations, as well as in the recruitment and retention of minority women scientists in the nursing field. Her deep interest in advancing public health has led her to specialize clinically in public health nursing and to focus her prolific academic and research efforts on the prevention of disease among underserved ethnic minority women. She is the creator and developer of the SEPA model, which is the Spanish acronym for “Salud, Educación, Prevención, Auto Cuidado”, and translates to “Health, Education, Prevention, and Self-Care”. The SEPA intervention is delivered by Hispanic women and tailored to the specific needs of Hispanic women. In 2007, she obtained funding to implement the SEPA model at multiple sites throughout Miami-Dade and Broward counties. Dr. Peragallo also received several Federal grants to conduct multiple trials of SEPA that have demonstrated its efficacy for risk reduction. She also received two NIH grant awards targeting disenfranchised female populations in Chile. One grant was for the training of women health care workers to conduct community HIV prevention programs, and the second grant was to adapt and implement SEPA as an HIV-AIDS prevention method for Chilean women. Her willingness to work across international borders, targeting a community of healthcare workers who are not traditionally trained to focus on their neediest female populations, demonstrates Dr. Peragallo’s commitment to elevate the status of women and open new frontiers for female populations not only locally and nationally, but also for society in general.

Lillie Pierce Voss formerly of Delray Beach was the first non-Native American child born between Jupiter and Miami.  As a child she learned to interact with the Seminole Indians and she learned to shoot, hunt, fish, and sail a boat as well as any male. She was known as the Sweetheart of the Barefoot Mailmen, helping her mother cook breakfast for the mailmen and rowing them across the lagoon to the beach strip where they would start their historic treks. Her husband was a boat captain and steam engineer, who ran steamboats in South Florida in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Together they piloted yachts between Palm Beach and New England for wealthy seasonal Palm Beach residents. Ms. Voss was a pioneer woman and dynamic individual who helped build South Florida while raising her five children. She witnessed and participated in some of the watershed events in the development of Southeast Florida, raised a successful family, and survived a hard-scrabble existence in the wild, untamed frontier of Southeast Florida at a time when most male settlers could not survive. She was smart, tough, and was an intricate part of South Florida’s unique history.  “The

Florida Commission on the Status of Women is proud to honor these outstanding women who mean so much to our state and our history,” said Commission Chair Nancy C. Acevedo.  “Each year it is more difficult to choose ten finalists to send to the Governor because of the many superb nominations we receive,” adds Florida Women’s Hall of Fame Chair, Susanne Hebert. This year marks the twenty-ninth anniversary of the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame. The Commission accepts nominations for the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame each year from April 1 — July 15. This year’s inductees will be honored at a ceremony on March 6, 2012 at 5:00 p.m. in the Capitol Courtyard in Tallahassee.