Ginger Myers receives Woman of the Year award

ALBANY — Once a year, the Albany Woman’s Club bestows the honor of Woman of the Year to one outstanding member who has shown dedication to the club and the community. This year the recipient of the award was long-time member and outgoing president Ginger Myers.

The Albany Woman’s Club is a part of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, which was founded in 1890 and now has local clubs in all 50 states and a few international chapters as well. The Albany Woman’s Club is part of the Southwest District in Georgia and was founded in 1912. Since it’s founding, the club has given out many scholarships to outstanding students and participated in a variety of local community service projects.

One of the club’s most recent projects was a donation drive hosted at the Ledo Walmart where the club was able to gather a variety of donations for Liberty House.

With such a busy schedule of projects, club members find it important to honor their hardworking members. Member Marian Sherman said that out of the different awards given, she considers the Woman of the Year award the most important.

“We give out a family of the year award and a mother of the year award as well,” Sherman said. “But to me, this is the highest award.”

The board for the club chooses the recipient of the award from its 50 members, and this year the board decided to honor Myers for her extensive past work.

“She is a dynamic person who gets involved with everything,” Sherman said. “She was a member of almost all of our different groups and attended a lot of the six departments’ meetings.”

Sherman said that the award is saved for a member whose work in the club stands out, and Myers’ past work and experience fit all of the qualities for the award. Myers has been an active participant since she joined the club, and Sherman said that she rarely misses an event.

“When we were having our Liberty House donation drive at Walmart, Ginger had broken her leg earlier,” Sherman said. “But she was still there, even with her boot on.”

Myers was also the past president for the club. Sherman said that before Myers became president, she was originally the vice president, but then the president of the club became ill and Myers stepped up to the job and worked hard to continue the work of the previous president.

“Sometimes the winner of the award is an obvious choice,” Sherman said. “While (Myers) was president, she just really stood out.”

The Albany Woman’s Club will begin meeting again in August and has a full schedule planned for the next year.

Tessa Green