860 SUMME, PATRICIA M. PerkinElmer. “Summe Biography,” in e-mail to author, October 2, 2006. Univ. of Kentucky College of Engineering Hall of Distinction. “Gregory L. Summe.” www.engr.uky.edu/ alumni/hod/summe (accessed September 25, 2006).
Robert W. Stevie
SUMME, PATRICIA M. (b. May 20, 1953, Covington, Ky.). Patricia Mary Summe, the fi rst woman Kenton Co. Circuit Court judge, is the daughter of prominent attorney Joseph L. Summe and Kathleen “Kit” Maguire Summe. The third of six children, Patricia lived in Covington until 1957, when the family moved to Fort Wright. She attended St. Agnes Catholic Church grade school and graduated from Notre Dame Academy, in Park Hills, in 1971 and Xavier University, in Cincinnati, in 1975. She received a JD degree from Chase College of Law, in Highland Heights, in 1979. Following the death of her father in 1980, she became a partner in Summe & Summe attorneys at law. Summe served as city attorney of Fort Wright from 1982 to 1994 and as city attorney of Ludlow from 1990 to 1994. After practicing in the areas of family law, municipal law, personal injury, and real estate, Summe successfully ran for the Kenton Co. Circuit Court in 1994. She serves on the Kentucky Bar Association’s committee for judicial concerns. She was board president of the Chase College of Law Alumni Association from 1983 to 1985, was president of the Redwood School (see Redwood Rehabilitation Center) from 1988 to 1995, and served on the board for the First Bank of Northern Kentucky. Summe’s commitment to the community earned her the Kentucky Post’s “Outstanding Woman of the Year” award in 1998, and in 2003 she received the Martin Luther King award from the local chapter of the NAACP. She is active in her parish and in various charities and nonprofit organizations. “Notre Dame Recognizing 3 Alumnae,” KP, February 25, 2004, 3K. Summe, Patricia. Interview by Gabrielle Summe, January 1, 2006, Fort Wright, Ky. “Woman Breaches Male Bastion,” KE, November 15, 1994, B3.
Gabrielle Summe
SUMMERS, HOLLIS S. (b. June 21, 1916, Eminence, Ky.; d. November 14, 1987, Athens, Ohio). Novelist and poet Hollis Spurgeon Summers Jr. was the son of a Baptist minister, Rev. Hollis Spurgeon Summers Sr., and Hazel Holmes Summers. During his youth, Hollis Jr. and his family lived in parsonages at Campbellsville (Taylor Co.), Louisville, and Madisonville, Ky. He earned his BA from Georgetown College in Georgetown, Ky., in 1937, his MA from the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., in 1943, and his PhD from the University of Iowa at Iowa City in 1949. His fi rst employment was as an English teacher at Holmes High School in Covington. His next teaching position was at his alma mater, Georgetown College. In
1949 he was appointed chair of the English department at the University of Kentucky (UK) in Lexington, where he taught for the next 10 years. While at UK, he and his colleague Robert Hazel played major roles in the nurturing and development of five “world-class” writers: Wendell Berry, Ed McClanahan, James Baker Hall, Gurney Norman, and Bobbie Ann Mason. After leaving UK, Summers taught at Ohio University in Athens from 1959 to 1986. He married Laura Vimont Clarke on June 13, 1981, and they had two sons, David Clarke Summers and Hollis S. Summers III. Colleagues of Hollis Summers described him as a cultivated, sophisticated individual, “punctilious” and a good, sharp critic, who expected his students to dot every i and cross every t. Between 1948 and 1984, five novels, seven books of poetry, and numerous short stories written by Summers were published. He used his home state of Kentucky as the setting for many of his writings, and the underlying theme often dealt with the lifelong confl ict between religious teachings and human love affairs. His brother Joseph H. Summers Sr. was also a writer and an English professor, at the University of Rochester in New York. Hollis Summers Jr. died at his home in Athens, Ohio, at age 71 and was buried at the Millersburg Cemetery in Millersburg, Ky. After his death, Ohio University began awarding, in his honor, the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize for the best unpublished poem submitted each year, a practice that continues today. Department of English & Theatre. “Hollis Summers.” www.english.eku.edu (accessed May 8, 2006). Kentucky Educational Television. “The U.K. connection.” www.ket.org (accessed May 8, 2006). Summers, Hollis Spurgeon. Brighten the Corner. New York: Doubleday, 1952. Ward, William S. A Literary History of Kentucky. Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1988.
SUMMERS, JANE ROBERTA WHATLEY (b. May 5, 1895, Selma, Ala.; d. June 29, 1992, Covington, Ky.). Community activist Jane Roberta Whatley Summers was the daughter of Calvin and Minerva Kendall Whatley. In 1934, at age 16, Jane Summers moved with her family to Covington. She soon developed a community-service mindset. She joined the St. James A.M.E. Church and became one of the denomination’s most active members, both locally and nationally. As both a wife and a mother, it seemed that daily Summers was helping someone in need. For example, if she encountered a person who required medical attention, she would contact a local physician and stay at the person’s side until medical help arrived. Throughout the years, because of such generosity, most local African American Kentuckians described Summers as an angel of mercy. At age 50 Summers became the first African American manager of Covington’s Jacob Price Homes housing community, which was built in 1939. As manager, she helped numerous residents by conducting yearly fundraising events, by offering individual counseling sessions on health-care topics, and by sponsoring workshops on how to
gain access to local governmental agencies. During these years, many local residents referred to Summers as “Mama Janie.” Even after leaving her Jacob Price Homes position at age 75, Summers continued to serve her community. She was a member of the Northern Kentucky Community Action Commission, the Northern Kentucky Interfaith Commission, the local Meals on Wheels program, and the Kentucky Human Rights Commission. She also was active in the local NAACP chapter and helped to organize a regional Poor People’s Campaign. In 1992, as a testament to her various humanitarian activities and extraordinary community ser vice, Summers was inducted into to the Northern Kentucky Leadership Hall of Fame. After her death that year, Summers continued to receive posthumously notable awards, celebrity plaques, and recognition decrees, such as a key to the City of Covington, a proclamation from the Kenton Co. Fiscal Court, an honorary and recognition letter from U.S. senator and former Kentucky governor Wendell Ford (1971–1974), a Community Ser vice Award from the Covington–Kenton Co. Jaycees, and election into the Gallery of Great Black Kentuckians by the Kentucky Commission on Human Rights. Throughout her 97 years, Summers was an essential and preeminent community activist, who waged a lifetime battle against racism, homelessness, illiteracy, and hunger. African American National Biography, s.v. “Jane Roberta Summers,” by Lois Schultz. Oxford Univ. Press, forthcoming. Fisher, John C. K. “African American History Has a Devoted Caretaker,” KP, October 18, 1997, 1K. “Happy Birthday—Our Role Model—Th is Is Your Life—Jane Summers: 96 Years Young—May 5, 1991,” Northern Kentucky African American Heritage Task Force Collection, W. Frank Steely Library, Northern Kentucky Univ. “Jane Summers,” KP, July 2, 1992, 10A. “Jane Summers, 97, Mentor to Many in Covington,” KP, July 1, 1992, 10A. “Local Activist Added to Gallery,” KP, November 14, 2001, 21A. Northington, Mary. Interview by Eric R. Jackson, September 2004, Covington, Ky.
Eric R. Jackson
SUMMERS, SCOTT (b. March 25, 1967, Warren Co., Ky.). Scott Patrick Summers, a champion cross-country motorcycle racer, is the son of Wade and Fran P. Garrison Summers. He grew up in Petersburg in Boone Co. Scott began riding motorcycles at age five and began racing them at age seven. He attended Ockerman Junior High School and graduated from Conner High School. By age 21, Summers had become a competitor within the American Motorcyclist Association race circuit. He won at least 10 national motorcycling titles. On the circuit, he traveled upwards of 60,000 miles annually. He has three practice tracks on his farm off Synder Ln. in Boone Co., where he spends several hours riding motorcycles each day. Success in motorcycling competitions brought Summers more than 18 corporate sponsors, in-