In celebration of Women’s History Month, please join a program at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at the Extension/Stallings Building (One Stop Shop) at 15029 14th St. Dade City, FL 33525 coordinated by Aimee G. Schlitt, Program Manager at UF IFAS Cooperative Extension/Pasco County with moderator, Madonna Jervis Wise, retired school administrator of three Florida school districts and author of Trailblazing Women of Tampa Bay and 12 additional books, various curriculums, and newspaper columns.

The program will include a review of historical women of East Pasco County from the historical files:

• Willa Rice & Mabel Healis Bexley
• Greta Adams & Margarita Romo
• Christine Mickens & Alpha Sorosis Women’s Group
• Alice Hall & Rosemary Trottman
• Pat Muleri, Joan Pryor & Sylvia Young, and Jeanette Thompson

Followed by a panel of contemporary women leaders who will share their story and their inspiration, with a question and answer time.

MARY KATHERINE MASON ALSTON
A force in the Dade City Merchant’s Association and an innovative entrepreneur, Mary Katherine is a product of East Pasco where she graduated from ZHS. A veteran, she drove military trucks into Iraq, and on March 25, 2003. The 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed there as Mason’s unit headed toward Nasiriyah to resupply troops during a sandstorm. A proud American Veteran, Mason became an entrepreneur in Dade City, with her incredible business, Lanky Lassie’s Shortbread. (The Marine Corps Women’s Reserve was established in February of 1943 and as Congress passed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act in 1948, women became a permanent part of the Marine Corps.)

MARGARET ANGELL
The president of the Dade City Merchant’s Association for over ten years, Margaret, a 1966 PHS grad, previously had an extensive career in law enforcement. She was the first female Private Investigator (PI) in Pasco County, after serving as an officer with the Dade City Police Department and Pasco Sheriff’s Department. She credits Andrew “A.P. Gibbs for assisting her as she worked as his legal assistant after graduating from college. Her PI firm employed five agents and her pursuits both as a police officer and P.I. were courageous and trailblazing. The proprietor of the Angel Tea Room, Margaret is passionate about preserving the character and culture of Dade City.

LEANNE MCKENDREE JOHN
Selected 2024 Teacher of the Year for Pasco County Schools, one of the larger school districts in the nation with nearly 86,000 students. Leanne is a home-grown girl from Dade City. With a passion for 4-H as a child, she honed public speaking and leadership skills that she transformed into her role as an elementary teacher and later a high school teacher of agriculture at Zephyrhills High School. “LeAnne’s passion for helping students grow into leaders in the agriculture communities is evident in the activities, events, and challenges she incorporates into her lessons and student experiences. She has created a leadership standard that her students carry forward. The culture and climate she creates in her
classroom, lab, and barn encourages students daily.”

MELONIE BAHR MONSON, Mayor of Zephyrhills
Melonie Bahr Monson is the second female mayor in the history of Zephyrhills history (and there were 21 mayors over time). Monson arrived in Zephyrhills in 1969 when her family established Bahr’s Mobile Home Park. She remembers growing up in a retirement park and interacting regularly with the neighbors. In the graduating class of 1979 from Zephyrhills High, she was named American Legion Student of the Year when she was in eighth grade and played softball and golf in high school.
“My mother (Edna Bahr, 86) was very adamant that girls are going to be able to do anything boys can do,” Monson said. She worked as the town’s assistant city clerk, then joined The Greater Zephyrhills Chamber of Commerce, where she eventually became CEO, a role she held for eight years.

MAMIE WISE
Licensed for 15 years, Mamie Venita Jervis Wise is a Criminal Defense and white collar crime lawyer in Tampa Florida who attended Columbia Law School and Duke University. She is currently an Assistant U.S. Attorney. She practiced in New York City and later in Tampa in private law firms in New York and Florida
before joining the government as a prosecutor. A graduate of ZHS, Mamie was the Florida State 4-H President while in high school and enjoyed the State 4-H Legislature program where she cultivated a passionate mission for “the law.” The mother of three children, Mamie is very active in her community.

NORMITA “ANGEL” WOODARD, Dade City Commissioner and Mayor Pro Tempore of Dade City
Normita Lytreal Woodard is a lifelong resident of Dade City, Florida, and a proud Pasco High graduate class of 1988.  Normita is employed by Pasco County Schools as the Principal’s Secretary at Lacoochee Elementary School. Normita has one daughter and one granddaughter.  She is also a graduate of Pasco
Hernando State College with a Bachelor of Science in Supervision and Management Organizational Administration.  As a decorated Military Veteran, Normita has earned numerous awards including the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Iraq Campaign Medal with two campaign stars, Afghanistan
Campaign Medal with two campaign stars, and the National Defense Service Medal.  

JASMINE WRIGHT has always had a knack for sewing.
She would watch and learn from her Abuela when she was younger. It’s in her blood. So is entrepreneurship. “Growing up in Mexico I had an aunt who had a store in her home. The downstairs of her home was her little tienda and then upstairs she would be in the kitchen cooking and then if a customer would come in she would run down and ring them up,” Wright said. Wright is first-generation Mexican. Two years ago, she and her husband took a chance and made Dade City their home and opened Treehouse Mercantile. They quit their jobs out west and moved closer to family in Dade City after having their firstborn child. They began with prototypes of pottery and soon moved into a brick-and-mortar store along the downtown main strip. Now, the quaint store is filled with items that were born from new beginnings but hold an old reminder of home.