[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 48 (Wednesday, March 15, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Page S3993]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                         ADDITIONAL STATEMENTS

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                      TRIBUTE TO MRS. ALICE SPARKS

 Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I rise today to pay tribute to 
an outstanding Kentuckian who was recently honored with the Kentucky 
Enquirer's Woman of the Year award. Mrs. Alice Sparks of Crescent 
Springs, KY, has dedicated her time and energy for the betterment of 
northern Kentucky and its citizens.
  Mrs. Sparks has made it common practice to work hard for the causes 
that she deems important. She has always strived to make a difference, 
especially when it comes to education. This interest in education has 
been acknowledged by her appointment to chair the Northern Kentucky 
University board of regents.
  In addition, Mrs. Sparks has been politically active for the past 40 
years. Often, her political interest has been combined with her 
interest in education. In particular, she helped usher in the Kentucky 
Education Reform Act, a major piece of legislation in my State.
  Mr. President, I ask my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to 
Alice Sparks, the Kentucky Enquirer's Woman of the Year. I know that 
Mrs. Sparks will continue to display the leadership and dedication that 
she has demonstrated so capably in the past.
  Mr. President, I ask that the Enquirer's March 6, 1995, article on 
Alice Sparks be printed in the Record.
  The article follows:

               [From the Kentucky Enquirer, Mar. 6, 1995]

                Sparks Flies Into Adventures With Aplomb

                           (By Krista Ramsey)

       Alice Sparks sits contentedly behind her desk in a 
     nondescript corner of the WCET-TV (Channel 48) studios, and 
     it's hard to imagine that a week earlier the 60-year-old was 
     swimming with the piranhas in the Amazon.
       It's not much easier to picture her tearing across the 
     explosive Brazil-Colombia border in a Volkswagen caravan.
       It was ``just for fun,'' she says of the escapade, the 
     third in a series of adventure vacations that have taken her 
     to Tanzania and the mountains of Costa Rica. Back at the WCET 
     studios, she says, is where the real pressure lies.
       For 11 years, the Crescent Sprints resident and WCET 
     trustee has been scheduling chairman for the Action Auction, 
     the station's annual April fund-raiser. From her office, she 
     routes more than 4,400 items to be sold over a 10-day period.
       ``I'm laid back in a lot of ways, but I'm also dead 
     serious,'' she says of the auction. ``Don't get in my way 
     when we go on the air.''
       No one does.
       Sparks is granite sheathed in satin. She has the savvy of a 
     political trench worker sweetened with the smile of a 
     homecoming queen.
       When the cause is right--and the cause is always 
     education--Sparks can be found in the back halls of WCET 
     lining up auction chattel, or in the back rooms of the state 
     Capitol in Frankfort, lobbying for legislative support.
       As state legislative chair for the Kentucky PTA from 1988 
     to 1993, Sparks served as midwife as the Commonwealth gave 
     birth to the Kentucky Education Reform Act (KERA) of 1990.
       The legislation changed everything, from how schools are 
     funded to how students are arranged in classes. It sparked 
     controversies, which never deterred Sparks.
       ``I like all of KERA,'' she says firmly. ``I can see the 
     results. There are now more opportunities for parental 
     involvement in
      the schools than ever before.'' Status quo wasn't good 
     enough, she says. The Commonwealth was ready to take a 
     risk.
       Sparks is comfortable with risk, piranha and otherwise.
       ``I like to gamble,'' she admits conspiratorially, leaning 
     across her desk. ``My father liked to gamble. In the summer, 
     we'd play cards all night.'' The itch still sends Sparks off 
     on periodic trips to Las Vegas, and to play the ponies 
     locally.
       Besides how to spot a good poker hand, Sparks' father 
     taught her to like another kind of risk. He was a printer at 
     the Louisville Courier-Journal, and became an international 
     representative for the printers union. A staunch Democrat, he 
     always was concerned with social issues, she remembers.
       The political bug bit his daughter as well, but the 
     Republican strain. Her entry into Kentucky politics began 
     nearly 40 years ago, when she left college and went to work 
     as a social secretary for Mildred Chandler, wife of former 
     Gov. A.B. ``Happy'' Chandler.
       ``The Chandlers made me a member of the family,'' she says. 
     ``I had an apartment right by the mansion. I learned a lot. I 
     met a lot of influential people.''
       Later, she served on the Kenton County Republican Executive 
     Committee, and is a member of the local and statewide Women's 
     Political Caucus and the Kenton County Republican Women's 
     Club.
       In 1992, she earned an appointment to the Northern Kentucky 
     University Board of Regents. Two years later, she became the 
     first woman to chair the board. When Sparks speaks of NKU, 
     she uses the collegial ``we.''
       ``We're playing the third-place team,'' she says of men's 
     basketball. ``We need a new science building,'' she says of 
     the university as a whole.
       Sparks' involvement with a cause, says W. Wayne Godwin, 
     general manager of WCET, is paid for with ``personal 
     currency.''
       ``Alice gives her causes her dedication, energy and 
     thoroughness,'' Godwin says. ``She works at an institutional 
     level--as a trustee or board member--but she always stays 
     focused on the personal level.''
       Sparks works so hard that the thought of spare time makes 
     her nervous, she says. She has cut back on socializing to 
     make room for more causes, but chooses carefully. Many, like 
     her membership on the board of the Greater Cincinnati Film 
     Commission, are a chance to make sure Northern Kentucky is 
     well represented.
       In daily life, little fazes Sparks. She bounced through her 
     South American trip in turbulent skies without complaint. On 
     her return, she was gracious about finding a stuffed 
     wildebeest in her family room, a gift of her son-in-law.
       She knows who she is, what she can do and what she's after. 
     She's used to moving things along, from goods at the Action 
     Auction to play on a golf course.
       ``I do still golf, especially at benefits,'' she says. 
     ``But I always stand on the green and admit I cheat. I don't 
     have time to worry about a bad lie. I just kick it 
     out.''
     

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