[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 82 (Thursday, May 16, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S2921]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 REMEMBERING GERALDINE ``JERRY'' EMMETT

 Ms. SINEMA. Mr. President, today I wish to honor the life and 
legacy of Geraldine ``Jerry'' Emmett, a community leader who passed 
away in Prescott, AZ, on April 30, 2019, at the age of 104. Jerry was a 
lifelong Democrat and campaigned for Arizona's first Governor, George 
W.P. Hunt, before she was old enough to vote. She will be fondly 
remembered as the oldest delegate at the 2016 Democratic National 
Convention, where she did several national media interviews.
  While waiting tables in her family's restaurant, she met and 
impressed an Arizona State Teachers College--now Northern Arizona 
University--recruiter from Flagstaff, and received a tuition 
scholarship of $14.00 per semester, allowing her to attend and graduate 
from ASTC in 1937 with a degree in elementary education. She began her 
40-year teaching career at Kayenta on the Navajo Reservation. She also 
taught in Seligman, Tombstone, and Scottsdale, before finally settling 
in Phoenix at the Creighton School District. She taught in Phoenix for 
the next 30 years until her retirement, primarily at Lafayette 
Elementary School, Larry C. Kennedy. Evidently, her teaching career 
made an impression on her students, as over 60 former students attended 
her 100th birthday party to pay homage.
  Jerry cofounded the Prescott Area Democratic Women's Club and was a 
regular sight at Democratic Party events with her friends Carolyn and 
Dawn. Her smile and stories of growing up in Depression-era Arizona 
will be missed.
  Jerry is survived by her youngest son, Jim Emmett, five 
grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. She will be dearly missed 
by other family members, friends, and the hundreds of people whose 
lives she touched. Please join me in honoring her memory.

                          ____________________