COUNTYWIDE : Women’s History Project to Honor 3

An educator and two community activists will be recognized for bringing women’s history off the bookshelf and into the lives of local students.

Jeanne Miller, Louise Grethel and Karen Normington have been chosen to receive the sixth annual Erica Neville Memorial Alice Paul Award, presented each year by the Ventura County Women’s History Project.

The three will be honored at a Women’s History Month celebration at 7 p.m. Saturday in the Preuss-Brandt Auditorium at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. A program of “Women in American Music” by Del Rey and the Blues Gators will follow the awards ceremony. Tickets are $10 per person from the CLU Women’s Resource Center.

The winners were selected for having furthered “our goal of making women in history come alive in the classroom,” said Martha Baskerville, head of the Women’s History Project.

Jeanne Miller of Santa Barbara has taught women’s history at Ventura College since 1974, as well as speaking to community groups on the subject. “Most women don’t know how few rights they had a long time ago, and it’s important for them to know the changes that have come about,” she said.

Miller plans to bring her new daughter, born March 4, to the awards ceremony. “She’ll be luckier when she grows up than I was when I was growing up,” Miller said.

Louise Grethel of Thousand Oaks and Karen Normington of Camarillo are being honored for volunteer work in bringing women’s history into the elementary and middle school classrooms of their respective communities.

Over the past five years they, along with other members of the American Assn. of University Women, have researched, written scripts, designed costumes and performed as women from history. These include politician Barbara Jordan, former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Indian guide Sacagawea, author Pearl Buck, aviator Amelia Earhart and artist Mary Cassatt.

Grethel said her work began when she requested that the Conejo Valley School District celebrate Women’s History Week. “The school board laughed at the notion. They said it was ridiculous,” she said. “That made me and other women angry.’

She channeled that anger into the Women’s History Project. “It’s an incredible success,” said Grethel, who visits and performs in 45 classrooms each year.

Normington said the project gives children roots. “It’s a link with strong, creative women. It’s a part of their heritage,” she said. “It’s important for girls and boys to get a different aspect of history.”

The awards are named for Alice Paul, a suffragist and author of the original text of the Equal Rights Amendment. They are presented in honor of Erica Neville, an initiator of the Women’s History Project who died in 1986.