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Dimensions
9.000 x 12.000 x 0.500 inches
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Title
Lillian Press
Artist
Bruce Ben Pope
Medium
Painting - Oil On Canvas
Description
Lillian Press, a Kentucky hero and advocate / practitioner of divergent thinking, serves as a wonderful example of how educated people today can have many different careers in one lifetime. She has been an inspirational leader in a variety of careers throughout her life.
Following her education at Boston University, Lil and her husband Leonard found their way to Kentucky where Len became the founder of Kentucky Educational Television and Lil continued her series of careers…..........…...
Press who was instrumental in establishing Kentucky’s mental health system and the Governor’s Scholars Program — intends to keep doing it………….…………
Lillian Henken Press was born and educated in Boston. She received a bachelor's degree magna cum laude from Boston University in 1946 and a master's degree from the then- new Boston U. College of Communications. She and her husband, O. Leonard Press, entered graduate school together in 1947 two weeks after their marriage and were one of the first couples to receive graduate degrees together at Boston University.
Prior to their move to Kentucky in 1952, Lillian worked as a newspaper reporter and as a public relations executive. Shortly after her move to Lexington, she joined the staff of the newly-arrived WVLK .She remained there until 1960, rising from commercials copywriter to program director
Several years after the birth of their only child, Lowell, in 1961 "Lil" became a volunteer for the newly formed Central Kentucky Mental Health Association, a decision that would change the direction of her life. In 1964 Lil, at the behest of the association, directed a survey of mental health resources and needs in nine Central Kentucky counties, as part of a nationwide initiative by President Kennedy. The recommendations offered and publicized in the final report of that survey were significant factors in the later development of Kentucky's' statewide mental health system of community mental health centers.
To implement the recommendations, Lil then organized and developed Kentucky's first Regional Mental Health Board which in turn, under her direction launched Kentucky's first two Comprehensive Care Centers with help from the Kentucky Department of Mental Health, led by Commissioner Dr. Dale Farabee, This became the prototype for a state system of community mental health centers that Dr. Farabee spread across the Commonwealth and was proclaimed in a news release "the best in the nation" by the National Institute of Mental Health. (The Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board, now covering 17 counties, grew from that first Board).
In 1967 Lillian Press was appointed Executive Assistant to Commissioner Farabee and served in that post until 1975.
In late 1982 when she was in Washington as Special Assistant to Appalachian Regional Commission's Federal CoChairman Al Smith, she was recruited by Governor John Y. Brown to organize and direct Kentucky's Governor's Scholars Program that he was about to launch the next July. Lillian Press served as executive director for its first 10 years.
In only its second summer, this innovative, challenging liberal arts program for Kentucky's brightest rising high school seniors, was heralded as an "Educational Utopia" by Fred Hechinger, education editor of the New York Times, in a five-column article he wrote after a visit to the Program. It became a model for other such schools, and today approximately 22,000 students have been motivated and inspired by this life-changing program, many already serving in leadership positions in the Commonwealth.
Recognizing that it would help herself and others, Lil organized 28 other state Governor's Schools into the National Conference of Governor's Schools (NCoGS) in 1987 and served as its chair/president until her retirement in 1992. NCoGS has since established a Distinguished Achievement Award in her name and that of Jim Bray, who served for 30 years as director of the nation's first Governor's School in North Carolina.
During her retirement, Lillian Press turned her attention to increasing the participation of citizens, particularly women, in the political process, In late 2002 she organized The Women's Network, Advocates For Democratic Principles with an emphasis on those Principles and a future based on FDR's Four Freedoms. That Network now includes branches and chapters throughout Kentucky with close to 1000 members. The Women's Network has recently established a new Commonwealth Institute For Policy Issues and Civic Engagement and has become a force in local and state politics.
The Women's Network has been cited by state political leaders as the most important political development in recent history. Governor Beshear has stated publicly that "I would not have been elected governor, nor Jane, First Lady, were it not for The Women's Network." Lillian Press has continued as president of The Women's Network since its inception.
She received an honorary degree from Centre College in 1992 and has been a member of the Centre College Board of Trustees for 17 years. The late Lucille Little, a Lexington philanthropist, endowed the O. Leonard and Lillian Press Distinguished Lecture Series at Centre College in tribute to their service to the state.
In 2006 Lil received the Martha Layne Collins Leadership Award from Women Leading Kentucky, and in 2008, another surprise, when The Women's Network elected her the first recipient of the Lillian Press Distinguished Leadership award. She also received
A Distinguished Achievement Award from the Kentucky Department of Mental Health in the 1970s.
Other community service:
President for thee years, Kentucky Oral History Commission
Board of Trustees, St. Catharine College
Secretary, Headley-Whitney Museum Board
President, Central Kentucky Mental Health Association
Board member, Community Fund (later called United Way of the Bluegrass)
Board member, Hospice of the Bluegrass
Organizer and member,1st Bluegrass Regional Mental Health-Mental Retardation Board
Advisory Board, Women Leading Kentucky
Advisory Board, Emerge Kentucky
Transition Team for Governor Steve Beshear
Uploaded
August 18th, 2017
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