campus events
reunion celebration Two extraordinary alumnae receive honors during Reunion Weekend 2004 The Distinguished Alumna for 2004 is Barbara Cook Wormser ’59. Barbara Cook Wormser doesn’t believe in waste. Especially when it comes to good food that could go to people who really need it. Wormser is the founder and president of Inland Harvest, a nonprofit volunteer organization devoted to helping feed the hungry. For almost 15 years, she and her now 140 volunteers have been collecting food from restaurants, cafeterias, bakeries, markets, and other donors and distributing it the same day to shelters and programs that provide meals for the homeless and needy. As a resident of Barbara Cook Redlands for over 40 Wormser years,Wormser has served her community in many ways. She is a ENTHRALLED: 70th reunioners Leonora Pierotti, Lois L. founding member of Brown, and Louise Veneklasen enjoy the “Through the the University of Years” media presentation at the May 1 Reunion Redlands Town and Convocation. Gown; she was chairwoman for the United Way Homeless Task Force; president of the Redlands YWCA, the Redlands Symphony Association, and the Redlands Sister Cities Association. She also served on the San Bernardino County Regional Parks Commission and board of Directors of the Redlands Community Hospital. From 1988 to 1989, she was mayor pro-term on the Redlands City Council. For her exceptional service to the community,Wormser was named Redlands Woman of the Year, for 1993-94.This April, her community gave her its prized Humanitarian Award. Wormser received her Scripps’ degree in international relations and economics and did graduate work in political science at U.C. Santa Barbara.The mother of three grown children, she lives in Redlands with her husband, Laurence, a CMC graduate. She is the mother of Carolyn Wormser ’81, and the sister of Nancy Cook Aldrich ’66. Coincidentally, Aldrich was the Scripps Distinguished Alumna of the Year in 1984.
Linda Lewis
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Gabrielle Giffords is the youngest woman ever elected to the Arizona State Senate; the Democratic Leadership Council recently named her one of the “Top 100 Democrats to Watch”; the Sierra Club named her “Rookie of the Year”; the Arizona League of Cities and Towns gave her their Award of Distinction. After graduating from Scripps, with honors, Giffords received a master’s in urban planning from Cornell University. In the mid 1990s, Giffords worked as an urban planning consultant for Price Waterhouse in New York.There, she conducted a study for a client to determine whether job-training programs in the city were preparing people for jobs that actually existed. Giffords found that there was no match. A few years later, Giffords was called back to Tucson to become president and CEO of the family business. She learned firsthand about the woeful condition of workforce preparation in America. When the state house seat for her central Tucson district became open in 2000, Giffords saw both an opportunity and a duty to act on her concerns about basic education, workforce readiness, and smart economic development. She won the seat, and voters rewarded her in 2002 by electing her to the state Senate. Gabrielle Giffords, with Nancy Y. Bekavac
scripps college
Dana Rakoczy
The Outstanding Recent Alumna for 2004 is Gabrielle (Gaby) Giffords ’93.