[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 24 (Monday, February 7, 2022)]
[Senate]
[Pages S539-S540]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TRIBUTE TO SECRETARY OF THE SENATE SONCERIA ANN BERRY

  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, serving in the U.S. Senate for as long as I 
have, I have seen dedicated, talented staffers come and go from my 
team. Some come to my office fresh out of college, spend some time, and 
move on to other opportunities or to further their education. Some have 
come to stay for years. And others join my team, already seasoned 
veterans of the Senate--and leave for higher office.
  So is the story of my dear friend, Sonceria Ann Berry, the 34th 
Secretary of the Senate, and my former deputy chief of staff. It was 
with great pride when, on March 1, 2021, I administered the oath to Ann 
as she became our own Madam Secretary. And it should come as no 
surprise that Ann brought to the esteemed position decades of 
experience in the Senate. A seasoned professional who has seen changes 
in leadership through the Congresses, Ann has counseled and mentored, 
quite literally, hundreds of staffers young and old. Her appointment as 
the Secretary of Senate was a source of great pride for me, and I am 
sure the other Members for whom she worked, including Senator Carper 
and former Senator John Edwards, as well as the late Senators Daniel 
Patrick Moynihan and Howell Heflin, share that pride.
  Secretary Berry is a 1978 graduate of the University of North 
Alabama, where she earned her bachelor degree in education. She 
recently returned to the University of North Alabama to deliver the 
fall commencement address. I found her words inspiring to the new 
graduates she addressed and instructional for those embarking in 
postgraduate life.
  I would like to ask unanimous consent that Secretary Berry's 
commencement remarks be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

   Commencement Address--Sonceria Ann Berry, Secretary of the Senate


          fall 2021 commencement, university of north alabama

       Thank you for that wonderful introduction, and let me begin 
     by congratulating the Class of 2021 for sticking with it, 
     overcoming unprecedented challenges, and graduating with a 
     well-earned degree in resilience, in addition to what you 
     majored in.
       College graduation is always a remarkable achievement, but 
     nobody has ever been through what you've been through to get 
     here, and you can wear this experience and this hard-won 
     success like a badge of honor for the rest of your life.
       Congratulations also to your families and friends who have 
     helped you get to this day.
       They are heroes, just like you, and they have made their 
     own sacrifices to support your ambitions. And I think they 
     deserve their own round of applause.
       I graduated from the University of North Alabama, with a 
     degree in secondary education, in 1978.
       As it happened, I didn't spend a minute of my career in 
     secondary education.
       Life had other things in store for me, and because of those 
     completely unexpected things, earlier this year, this fine 
     university honored me with its Lifetime Achievement Award.
       They said it was because I was the first African American 
     ever to serve as Secretary of the Senate--the chief 
     administrative, legislative and financial officer of the 
     world's greatest deliberative body.
       Or they may have just been looking for someone who 
     graduated a really long time ago.
       Either way, it was very special to me, because it was this 
     university that set me on a path of life I would never have 
     dreamed of before coming here.
       Before UNA, my ambition was to get a good office job.
       I was a pretty good typist and I was hoping for a career in 
     an office as a secretary.
       I was poor. I wanted to work and make money and have some 
     security for myself and my family.
       But after high school, I found work at the Home Insurance 
     Company in Homewood, Alabama.
       They call it a ``gap year'' now when you take a year 
     between high school and college to figure yourself out.
       But, for me, it wasn't anything so fancy. It was a year of 
     making a living.
       But it was also when I first learned about the University 
     of North Alabama.
       And the more I learned about it, the better I knew that it 
     was the place for me.
       UNA was not only the State's oldest public university, with 
     a heritage of training some of Alabama's finest teachers.
       In an era when it was still quite unusual for women to go 
     to college, UNA had already opened its doors to women for a 
     hundred years.
       And this year, UNA proudly celebrates its 150th anniversary 
     of co-education with the Year of the UNA Woman.
       I was also impressed by the academic rigor built into the 
     tradition of UNA.
       In its days as Florence Wesleyan University, prospective 
     students had to demonstrate an ability to translate four 
     books of Caesar's Gallic Wars from the original Latin, and 
     six books of Virgil from the original Greek, into English.
       I think all of us feel fortunate that those particular 
     skills are no longer required for admission to the University 
     of North Alabama.
       I know I did, and yet I quickly discovered that this 
     university's academic standards remained commendably high, 
     and so were its standards of conduct and ethics.
       It was also a community, where people cared about each 
     other, helped each other, encouraged each other, nurtured 
     each other.
       The course of my life was changed in just this way.
       After graduation, when I couldn't find work as a teacher, I 
     took a job as a secretary in the engineering department of 
     South Central Bell.
       But a year later, in 1979, I was contacted by the office of 
     Alabama's newly-elected United States Senator Howell Heflin 
     about a position in the Senator's Washington office.
       I didn't know Senator Heflin, or how his office had found 
     me.
       But I learned later that Dr. Robert Guillot, the president 
     of UNA for whom I had served as a student aide in the 
     Admissions Office, had recommended me to the Senator.
       And I was off to Washington, DC--a city I had never seen--
     for what Dr. Guillot correctly called ``the opportunity of a 
     lifetime.''
       That was forty-two years ago, and in the decades since, I 
     have been proud to work not only for Senator Heflin but later 
     for five other United States Senators in positions of 
     increasing responsibility.
       I was thinking seriously of retiring earlier this year when 
     I was offered the position of Secretary of the Senate--a 
     position for which I was nominated by the Majority Leader, 
     Chuck Schumer of New York, and to which I was elected by the 
     full membership of the United States Senate.
       Today I manage the Senate as an institution, supervising 26 
     departments, nearly 240 employees and a $25 million budget.
       My team and I are responsible for everything from recording 
     each day's Senate debates to running the Senate gift shop.
       The Parliamentarian of the Senate, the Senate Historian, 
     the office of interparliamentary services, and the people who 
     pay 100 Senators and thousands of staff people report to me.
       And I am proud to be the first African American, and the 
     eighth woman,

[[Page S540]]

     in the 232-year history of the Senate to hold this office.
       But what I found most compelling about being called to this 
     assignment was another historic opportunity that had nothing 
     to do with being Black or being a woman or being a pioneer of 
     any kind.
       It was the opportunity to support, lead and nurture a 
     remarkable group of people who protected our democracy during 
     the January 6 attack on the United States Capitol.
       When the rioters tried to disrupt the ratification of 
     Electoral College ballots, the people I work with secured 
     those ballots until the crisis had passed.
       When the rioters roamed through the Capitol building 
     threatening harm to anyone they encountered, the people I 
     work with barricaded themselves in their offices and kept 
     working.
       When the rioters put democracy itself in danger on that 
     infamous day, the people I work with waited them out and 
     certified the same peaceful transfer of power that has been 
     the hallmark of our government for more than two hundred 
     years.
       The people I work with are the ultimate public servants.
       They are the unsung heroes of our Republic, drawn not to 
     fame and glory but to the quiet, professional, essential 
     mission of supporting our institutions of government--on good 
     days and really bad days alike.
       And being their leader--not the fancy title, or the big 
     office in the Capitol building, or the pioneering path I 
     took--is the greatest honor of my life.
       I would never have dreamed, when I was a student here, that 
     my life's journey would lead me to this calling.
       The fact that it came after four decades on Capitol Hill, 
     when retirement was beckoning me, only makes it more 
     remarkable, more deeply personal and satisfying.
       As you sit here, contemplating your own futures, I would 
     simply encourage you to focus not so much on a specific 
     destination as on the journey itself.
       I didn't become an educator, though that was the dream of 
     my youth.
       I did things I never dared to dream. I saved the best for 
     last.
       And I have learned that the journey--with all its twists 
     and turns, peaks and valleys, sunshine and shadow--is what 
     life is really about.
       The journey is the choices you make, large and small. So 
     make good ones.
       It's the people you encounter, famous and familiar, heroes 
     and villains alike. So be kind to people, and be the kind of 
     person you want others to be.
       It's the preparations you make, not least those you have 
     made these past four years right here at the University of 
     North Alabama.
       It's the risks you take, like leaving the security of my 
     family for an adventure in the nation's capital.
       And it's the understanding you gain, slowly over the years, 
     of what's important and what's not, what's lasting and what's 
     fleeting, who you are and what you're supposed to do in your 
     time on earth.
       Philosophers tell us that ``life must be lived forwards, 
     but can only be understood backwards.''
       That's exactly the way I look at my life now and understand 
     my purpose, improbable as it was when I sat where you sit so 
     many years ago.
       As you begin your own adventure in the wide world, I urge 
     you to heed these simple, but profound, words of Ernest 
     Hemingway:
       ``It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is 
     the journey that matters, in the end.''
       Congratulations, good luck, and enjoy your journey.

                          ____________________