Full Text of SR2275 99th General Assembly
SR2275 99TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | SENATE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened to | 3 | | learn of the death of Hester Barbara Nelson Suggs; and
| 4 | | WHEREAS, Hester Suggs was born to Cecil and Carrie | 5 | | (Earnest) Nelson in Champaign on April 30, 1928; she graduated | 6 | | from Champaign High School in 1945 and entered the University | 7 | | of Illinois in the fall of 1945; in 1947, she pledged the Gamma | 8 | | Chapter of Alpha
Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., where she remained | 9 | | a lifelong member and served four terms as baselius
for the | 10 | | graduate chapter, Epsilon Epsilon Omega, and as a graduate | 11 | | advisor to Gamma; she married Raymond Eugene Suggs in June of | 12 | | 1948; and
| 13 | | WHEREAS, In the late 1940s, Hester Suggs served as a | 14 | | teacher in the Douglas Center Kindergarten Association, a | 15 | | community-based
organization that provided early childhood | 16 | | education for African American children in Champaign-Urbana,
| 17 | | during the time of a segregated school system; beginning in the | 18 | | early 1950s, she
concentrated on raising her family; and
| 19 | | WHEREAS, In 1961, Hester Suggs resumed her career as an | 20 | | educator, serving as the afternoon kindergarten teacher at
| 21 | | Booker T. Washington School; she returned
to the University of | 22 | | Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1961 to complete her bachelor's |
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| 1 | | degree in
elementary education, completing it in 1963; she | 2 | | completed her student teaching at Leal Elementary
School in | 3 | | Urbana, where she was later hired; both Champaign and Urbana | 4 | | Schools were in the process of
desegregation and her early | 5 | | experiences of combating racism were documented in a 1984 | 6 | | article in the
Illinois Times, "Black Women Who Beat the Odds"; | 7 | | she finished her master's degree in elementary
education from | 8 | | the University in 1965; and | 9 | | WHEREAS, Hester Suggs joined Champaign School District | 10 | | Unit 4 as a fifth grade teacher at Dr. Howard School; with the | 11 | | establishment of the gifted program in Unit 4, she was | 12 | | designated
as the teacher for the gifted for fifth grade; she | 13 | | served as a
teacher trainer for the Illinois State Board of | 14 | | Education, spending weekends conducting workshops in
the area | 15 | | of gifted education for teachers across east central Illinois; | 16 | | and | 17 | | WHEREAS, In 1971, Hester Suggs was selected as the | 18 | | principal of Booker T. Washington Elementary School in | 19 | | Champaign
Unit 4, a position she held for 22 years, retiring in | 20 | | 1993; in 1980, she successfully
secured a grant from the United | 21 | | States Department of Education to establish programs that | 22 | | emphasized "foreign
languages, music, cultural and performing | 23 | | arts, and interpretive thinking for children in kindergarten | 24 | | through the fifth grade"; and |
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, In 1988, Hester Suggs received the Service | 2 | | Recognition Award for Administrators from the Illinois | 3 | | Alliance for Arts in
Education; in 1997, she was honored at a | 4 | | dinner given by the National Council of African-American Men; | 5 | | she received the Booker T. Washington Award
for education from | 6 | | the
Urban League and the Champaign County Chamber of Commerce; | 7 | | the
Champaign Urbana Schools Foundation established the Hester | 8 | | Suggs Endowment Fund to provide
grants expanding the arts and | 9 | | humanities for African-American children in Champaign Unit 4; | 10 | | in 2012,
she was a recipient of "A Living Legend" award from | 11 | | the Champaign County Section of the National
Council of Negro | 12 | | Women; at the 2014 Centennial Celebration of the Gamma Chapter | 13 | | of Alpha Kappa
Alpha Sorority, Inc., she was honored for | 14 | | "extraordinary sisterhood and exemplary service" to the
| 15 | | chapter; and
| 16 | | WHEREAS, Hester Suggs served on the boards of the Community | 17 | | Foundation of Champaign County, Mercy Hospital, the Girls
Club, | 18 | | and the Illini Rebounders; after retirement, she continued her | 19 | | community service; she
volunteered with the local Illinois | 20 | | Retired Teachers Association and was a member of the Champaign
| 21 | | County African-American History Committee; she is a lifelong | 22 | | member of Bethel AME Church in Champaign; and
| 23 | | WHEREAS, Hester Suggs was preceded in death by her husband |
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| 1 | | of over 66 years, Eugene; therefore, be it
| 2 | | RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE NINETY-NINTH GENERAL | 3 | | ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of | 4 | | Hester Barbara Nelson Suggs, and extend our sincere condolences | 5 | | to her family, friends, and all who knew and loved her; and be | 6 | | it further
| 7 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 8 | | presented to the family of Hester Suggs as an expression of our | 9 | | deepest sympathy.
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