In memoriam.

In October 2006, the League lost two former national Board members.

Virginia Sweet, LWVUS/EF Board member from 1970-76, passed away on October 26th. Sweet joined the League in 1946. Having just moved into a new community, she was looking for volunteer work when her husband suggested the League as "the most worthwhile group." Sweet served on the Governor's Clean Water Task Force in Connecticut in 1965. She also served on the League's executive committee for its 50th Anniversary Campaign.

Marion Aldred Nichol, LWVUS/EF Board member from 1974-76, died on October 19, 2006. Nichol was very active in environmental causes; she chaired the LWV of New York's State Water Resources Committee. In 1970, she moved to North Carolina and joined the state League; she worked on legislation and organized statewide support for the NC Coastal Management Act. As chair of the LWVUS Land Use Committee, Nichol developed land use study programs and spoke at state conferences.

In January 2007, the League bid a sorrowful good-bye to another leading light, Barbara Stuhler, historian, author, educator and civic leader. Stuhler served as LWVUS/EF Board member from 1958-1964, its youngest member at age 34, after serving on the LWVMN Board of Directors for four years. A lifelong scholar, she worked at the University of Minnesota for 40 years; she was professor and associate director of the World Affairs Center and, when she retired in 1990, executive associate dean of the Extension Division. Stuhler was active in a variety of civic and political organizations and served on numerous boards. She was just completing a book on the history of the St. Paul YWCA at the time of her death.

Barbara Stuhler is remembered as a strong champion of civic involvement and women's rights in Minnesota and the nation. Her accomplishments are too numerous to list here, but among her League accomplishments, it should be noted that she authored For the Public Record: A Documentary History of the League of Women Voters. And, in 2002, the League of Women Voters honored her with the Barbara Stuhler E-Library (a library on the League's Web site). Stuhler was a generous, lifelong supporter of the LWVEF. She also remained an active member of the LWVMN until the very end of her life, overseeing the establishment of the Minnesota Women's Suffrage Memorial Garden and actively fundraising for the LWVMN Education Fund.

A mentor to women of all ages, Stuhler was and will continue to be an inspiring model in women's leadership. The League sorely misses her, but For the Public Record and our Barbara Stuhler Library will be constant reminders of her passion and her contributions. A celebration of her life was held in Minnesota in April 2007.