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Today's Featured Biography

Constance Gratop Lewis

Over the decades, I have earned 21/2 college degrees in urban studies, regional planning and public administration. This adventure began at Ohio University and was completed in the spring of 1970. Then after marriage, Ray and I did graduate work at Penn State, followed by a move to West Virginia (he is an eighth generation West Virginian), and built a life there. The Public Administration Masters was from Marshall University in one of the earliest graduate programs for working professionals. The funny thing is that I never really used my major areas of study as intended. What I have done instead is worked as an human rights investigator, owned my own retail business, served on many boards, and spent nearly 25 years as a lobbyist.

As a lobbyist, I represented all sorts of nonprofit organizations, mostly small and leaning left. A partial list of my clients' concerns includes public health,highway safety, criminal justice reform, domestic violence programs, juvenile justice, lesbian and gay rights and environmental issues. And it was a wonderful career. It was a successful career, until I took on environmental issues. In West Virginia it is actually easier to lobby for gay and lesbian rights than clean air and clean water. Now I concentrate my lobbying efforts as a volunteer with two organizations: Friends Committee On National Legislation and Michael J. Fox Foundation. And those are at the federal level.

The boards and steering committees I served on had a similar breadth of concerns as my lobbying clients. A partial list would include the Charleston YWCA, League of Women Voters, WV Envirionmental Institute, American Friends Service Committee and assorted municipal taskforces. Apparently I am the only Charleston person to serve as President of both the YW and LWV boards.

Ray and I both retired last year. He had reached the point where he could not perform his job as an engineer, even with the support of co-workers and supervisors. And he needed a care partner at home. And Mom needs me intermittently. We do travel while we still can, primarily to see our grandchildren in Philadelphia. Our only child, Brian, is director of annual giving for a private university in the Philly area.

Currently, we are looking for a home suitable for our retirement, with room for lots of books as well as the wheelchair Ray will someday need. And room for friends and family to visit as well.

West Virgnia hasn't been good to us financially, but friendships are rich, culture and diversity are surprisingly rich, and what isn't being blown up for coal or degraded for fracking is still quite beautiful.

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