[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 135 (Friday, December 8, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2221]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                     TRIBUTE TO MRS. THELMA GIBSON

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. KENDRICK B. MEEK

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, December 8, 2006

  Mr. MEEK of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor and 
congratulate Mrs. Thelma Gibson who will celebrate her 80th birthday on 
December 17th with friends, families and well wishers.
  Mrs. Gibson is a South Florida institution, a woman who has dedicated 
herself to a lifelong pursuit of education, while focusing on improving 
public healthcare in our community and instilling the virtues of 
community service and volunteerism in all people who are graced by her 
presence.
  Mrs. Gibson is the sixth of fourteen children and was born on 
December 17, 1926 to Sweetlon Counts Albury Anderson and Thomas 
Theodore Anderson. Mrs. Gibson is the mother of 2 children, Charles 
Gibson and Deveniece Gibson. She has 7 sisters and brothers--Joyce, 
Doris, Percy, Donald, Hubert, Alvin and Herma--and has a host of loving 
nieces and nephews. Mrs. Gibson is a native Miamian and the widow of 
the late Reverend Canon Theodore Roosevelt Gibson.
  Mrs. Gibson received her formative education at Coconut Grove 
Training School for Colored Elementary School, Coconut Grove Junior 
High School, and George Washington Carver High School, from which she 
graduated in February 1944. After graduation, Mrs. Gibson attended 
Saint Agnes School of Nursing at Saint Augustine's College in Raleigh, 
North Carolina and graduated in August 1947 as a Registered Nurse with 
a specialty in operating room techniques. She then returned home to 
work at Jackson Memorial Hospital in the operating room, where she had 
been approved for a position. Her employer, however, upon realizing 
that she was of Color, assigned her to work on the Colored wards.
  Mrs. Gibson continued her education in nursing by taking an advanced 
course from Florida A & M University taught by Dr. Mary Carnegie, Dean 
of Nursing, in a classroom provided by Jackson Memorial Hospital. In 
the summers of 1954 and 1955, while preparing to work in Public Health 
Nursing, Mrs. Gibson took advanced courses at Catholic University in 
Washington, DC. During the summers of 1956 and 1957, she attended the 
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where she enrolled in 
courses on cancer and communicable disease nursing. From there, she 
attended courses given through the University of Miami in 1957 and 1958 
out of the home of an instructor who lived in Coconut Grove at the 
corner of Main Highway and Lennox Avenue. A course was also provided at 
Booker T. Washington Senior High School. Finally, in 1959, Mrs. Gibson 
attended Teachers College at Columbia University, New York and earned 
her Bachelor of Science degree in nursing education.
  For more than 50 years, Mrs. Gibson has been a trailblazer in 
education, mental and physical health programs, and a community leader 
who served her church and family. In August of 1997, she was appointed 
as Interim City Commissioner and served on the City of Miami Commission 
through November 1997.
  Mrs. Gibson holds memberships on numerous boards, committees, and 
panels, and has received many honors, awards, recognitions, and 
certificates. The most recent accomplishment to Mrs. Gibson's credit is 
authoring her autobiography, Forbearance: Thelma Vernell Anderson 
Gibson, The Life Story of a Coconut Grove Native that was released in 
the Fall of 2000. Mrs. Gibson also sponsors the Thelma Gibson Health 
Initiative, housed at the Theodore R. Gibson Building, that provides 
free testing and assistance for HIV and AIDS infected persons. Her 
latest project is the Theodore and Thelma School of the Performing Arts 
located on Grand Avenue in Coconut Grove where the students receive 
academic training with a focus on the Arts.
  Mr. Speaker, I know all my colleagues join me in honoring Mrs. 
Gibson, a truly great lady, as she celebrates her 80th birthday. We can 
only wonder and marvel at the achievements that are still before her.

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