TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Awards Honor Pioneering Women

ADVERTISEMENT

By D'ANN LAWRENCE WHITE, The Tampa Tribune

Published: October 17, 2007

BRANDON - It was Carol Todd's big moment.

The only problem was she happened to be sitting a couple of hundred miles away on vacation in Tennessee, having dinner with her family.

That didn't stop the vice president of business development for Valrico State Bank from her from getting her two cents' worth in, however. When her boss, Valrico State Bank President Jerry Ball, stepped up to the podium to accept the fifth annual Pioneering Woman Award on Todd's behalf, he called her on his cell phone to tell her the news. On speaker phone, Todd took the opportunity to thank the award's sponsor, the Sunburst Chapter of the American Business Women's Association, as well as the community to which she has dedicated countless volunteer hours.

It was the inroads Todd made in the field of banking that earned her the award last week at the association's annual banquet. The association presents the honor to a woman who has made a difference in her career or her community by blazing a new trail.

A single mother of four, Todd is credited with blazing the way for women to become officers in the field of banking.

Todd also is known communitywide for her volunteer service. A Brandon resident since 1964, Todd served as honorary mayor of Brandon in 1987, president and vice president of Center Place Fine Arts and Civic Association and director of the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce three times. She volunteers each year for the YMCA Wild & Sassie Fashion Show, as well as other YMCA fundraisers, serves as a Riverview Chamber of Commerce ambassador, is community service chairwoman for the Kiwanis Club of Greater Brandon and has been the recipient of some of Brandon's highest honors - including the Key Citizen Award and the S.L. 'Spud' Clements Award.

The association also decided to recognize a group of women who made their mark on Brandon by forming the first library and starting the first school lunch program and first infant wellness program.

Former Brandon Woman's Club members Juanita Reynolds and Edith Wyley were on hand to accept the association's first Lifetime Award for a Pioneering Women's Group.

The club, which built the landmark Woman's Club facility at 129 N. Moon Ave. in Brandon in 1928, has disbanded and deeded the clubhouse to the Brandon Junior Woman's Club.

The club was chartered in 1925 but formed in 1915, when a group of women began meeting to establish a club to provide hot lunches for children attending Brandon School, then the community's kindergarten through 12th-grade school and now McLane Middle School. Led by Cora Putnam, the club went on to teach women how to preserve and can food during the lean war years.

After meeting in members' homes, club members decided to construct their own building and raised money by holding bazaars and chicken-and-biscuit suppers and selling home-made ice cream. The club purchased the 60- by 175-foot Moon Avenue lot from Eunice B. Linsley for $150 and began construction in 1927, holding its first meeting on Sept. 6, 1928.

The clubhouse also became home to Boy and Girl Scout troops, the Brandon Civic Club, the local 4-H Club and a well-baby clinic, where a doctor and nurse visited once a month to give infants and toddlers checkups and immunizations during the 1950s and '60s.

A barrister bookcase in the clubhouse served as Brandon's first library beginning in 1947. The county didn't build a free-standing library in Brandon until 1968.

Other Pioneering Woman Award nominees were Patricia Simms, who retired from Tampa Electric Co. after 30 years and then opened Platinum Skin Spa in Riverview; Stacy Feiler, public relations director for Resurrection Catholic Church and marketing director for Kitchen Tune-Up; Tammy Bracewell, president of the Greater Brandon Chamber of Commerce; and Marie Gilmore, publisher of the Osprey Observer newspaper.

Reporter D'Ann Lawrence White can be reached at (813) 657-4524 or dlwhite@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT