[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.
____________________