[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 107 (Thursday, June 26, 2008)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1360-E1361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN MEMORY OF HAZEL HARVEY PEACE

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. KAY GRANGER

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 26, 2008

  Ms. GRANGER. Madam Speaker, rise today to honor Hazel Harvey Peace, a 
longtime friend of District 12 and a Fort Worth icon, who passed from 
this life on June 8, 2008, at the age of 100.
  Hazel Harvey Peace, while small in physical stature, was a giant of a 
Texan who had a huge influence not only on the individuals who were 
fortunate enough to come within her sphere of influence during her long 
and fruitful life, but on her community, the state and the country. A 
native of Fort Worth, Hazel Harvey Peace was born on August 4, 1907 at 
a time when segregation was still alive and when opportunities for 
African Americans were still limited. Hazel Harvey Peace always 
exhibited that she was a special person. By the age of 13, she 
graduated from Fort Worth Colored High School, which later was renamed 
I.M. Terrell High School. By the age of 16, Mrs. Peace earned a 
bachelor's degree from Howard University, located in Washington, DC.

[[Page E1361]]

She returned to Fort Worth to join the staff of her alma mater, I.M. 
Terrell High School, where she was a teacher and administrator for 46 
years before retiring, for the first time. After her I.M. Terrell High 
School career, Mrs. Peace served nine years as the student affairs 
director and the financial aid coordinator of Bishop College in Dallas 
before retiring a second time. During her teaching career, Mrs. Peace 
earned a masters degree from Columbia University and did subsequent 
graduate work at other universities.
  While Hazel Harvey Peace may have retired from her professional 
career twice, she never retired from teaching, mentoring and kindly 
encouraging her former students, her neighbors, and her community. The 
cornerstone of her message and teaching was simple but powerful: attain 
the best education possible and always conduct yourself properly in 
your personal and professional lives. Generations of students fondly 
recall Mrs. Peace dedicating herself to arming them with knowledge that 
would enable each to be successful at whatever they chose in life, 
while also stressing what one student describes as ``proper conduct, 
proper diction, proper vocabulary, proper dress and proper carriage.'' 
Likewise, generations of community leaders, mayors, council members, 
city managers and other public stewards were the recipients of her wise 
counsel and of her vision to make the City of Fort Worth, the State of 
Texas and the United States of America a better place for generations 
to come. She rose to become the great dame of Fort Worth not because of 
wealth, not because of powerful position and not because of her station 
in life. Rather, she became one of the most influential women in Fort 
Worth's history because of her determination and dedication to inspire.
  Throughout the years, Mrs. Peace worked tirelessly not only for her 
students and the community's youth, but for the entire community. Her 
involvement included serving as co-chair for the City's Committee for 
the 150th Anniversary of Fort Worth, chairwoman of the Near Southeast 
Neighborhood Advisory Council and the United Community Centers, as well 
as service on other organizations such as the Tarrant County Housing 
Partnership, YWCA, Fort Worth Chapter of the NAACP and Women's Policy 
Forum Management Committee. Her numerous awards included Tarrant County 
Junior College Northeast Campus President's Cup Award, The Black 
Awareness Better Life Award, the Fort Worth School District's 
Distinguished Alumni Award and the Fort Worth Outstanding Women Award. 
In 2002 she was honored by being selected to be an Olympic Torchbearer 
as the torch made its way through Fort Worth.
  Because of her dedication to education and her belief that excellent 
libraries go hand in hand with education, the City of Fort Worth 
Central Library named its children's section the Hazel Harvey Peace 
Children's Library in 2002. To honor her life work, former students, 
friends and corporate citizens raised more than $350,000 in 2004 to 
create a Hazel Harvey Peace professorship at the University of North 
Texas in Denton, the first endowed professorship in Texas to be named 
for an African American woman at a four-year, publicly supported 
university.
  Our city, our state and our county are much better as a result of the 
life work of a wonderful, loving and dedicated woman-Hazel Harvey 
Peace.
  She will live forever in the thousands upon thousands of people she 
touched, from her students and children throughout the community, to 
her neighbors and public stewards. She will be missed but not 
forgotten.

                          ____________________