Lifetime achievement award celebrates commitment
Two things are required to be successful – commitment and purpose in living.
This was the message Tuesday night in the Taggart Student Center Ballroom as the Utah State University Women’s Center celebrated the lives of Anne Butler and Carolyn Cragun.
The Women Over 65 Lifetime Achievement Award ceremony is held annually in March in conjunction with National Women’s History Month.
Finalists are selected from a pool of applicants who are nominated by the community, said Janet Osborne, director of the USU Women’s Center.
Criteria for nominees include a local, statewide or national impact on the quality of life.
The Women’s Center Advisory Board, working with the USU Women’s Center, looks over the nominations and selects the recipients to be spotlighted.
“It is a difficult task,” said Osborne.
This year’s honorees are women who have not only left their mark in Cache Valley, but also worldwide.
Butler, of Logan, is a longtime educator. She loves to teach because it affects the lives of others.
“It doesn’t matter to me whether it’s one person, or a group of people,” she said of her service. “Every bit is important.”
Her teaching career took her throughout the United States as well as Japan, Jordan, Turkey and the Philippines.
She also has worked with Phi Delta Kappa, a professional educational society and helped in the Navajo Sheep Project, which reintroduced a rare breed to its original Western habitat.
Butler described her philosophy on life as including religion, learning, sharing and giving.
“She always told us to try our hardest in everything we do,” said her granddaughter, Sara Butler, a freshman at USU majoring in elementary education. “It’s amazing to see someone who has so much influenced my life, and see that influence spread to others. It makes me want to help others in the same way.”
Award winner Cragun had a similar philosophy. She quoted Helen Keller’s adage, “I’m only one, I cannot do everything. But I can do something.”
Cragun was the first woman elected to the North Logan City Council, a position which she held from 1986 to 1989.
She also co-chaired Hands Across the Valley, a Utah organization that helps women in need and was a member of the steering committee for the Utah Volunteer Council.
Students in attendance included members of the Alpha Chi Omega sorority at USU. The sorority partners with the Women’s Center for service opportunities.
“Alpha Chi Omega’s national philanthropy is domestic violence so we work with the Women’s Center on many occasions,” Kimberly Neilson, the sorority’s philanthropy chair, said.
Sorority members assisted in the ceremonies and handed out roses to the more than 20 past recipients who attended.
Neilson, a junior majoring in family consumer and human development, pointed to the impact of a slide show made by members of the advisory board which pictured influential women at USU and in the community.
“I was touched,” said Neilson. “It really made me think of all the potential that I have – that I can be empowered and really make a difference.”
-kjleslie@cc.usu.edu