|
Article Excerpt
These are some of the women of Melpomene. Their ages range from 33 to 88. Their professions include a journalist, a physician, a laboratory researcher, an IT specialist, a business owner, a school teacher and a clinical psychologist. One of them is a cancer survivor; one of them is successfully battling Anorexia Nervosa; one of them lost a leg below the knee. There's not a sport they don't participate in; there's not an attitude that isn't positive. The first three are honored guests at our 20th Anniversary Celebration. All of them are celebrated here as typical Melpomene members whose achievements represent all that is possible for each of us.
Jacqui Banaszynski
Jenna Zark
Pulitzer prize winner Jacqui Banaszynski, 49, lives in Seattle, Washington, and is Assistant Managing Editor/Sunday and Senior Story Editor of the Seattle Times. She also holds the Knight Chair at the Missouri School of Journalism, where she teaches and works with journalists and educators creating training programs for the newspaper industry.
While she has worked at dailies nationwide, Jacqui says, "my heart's home remains in Minnesota." She lived in the North Star state for 15 years, writing for the Duluth News Tribune and Herald, Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where she won the Pulitzer for her series, "AIDS in the Heartland." In 1989, Jacqui received Melpomene's Outstanding Achievement Award for breaking new ground as a writer and as a woman in her field.
Jacqui admits to a passion for the outdoors -- hiking, cross-country skiing, camping -- "although my job has kept me office- and airplane-bound for the last decade," she said. "Since moving to the Pacific Northwest, I've nurtured a love for gardening. And in December/January, when I'm missing the snow, it's a comfort to have flowers blooming."
Because her job keeps her busy from morning to night, Jacqui doesn't get much time to exercise. She used to run, and completed a marathon in 1982, but now feels best "when I've had the chance to get some serious, but non-structured, time outdoors, weeding, walking, hiking, moving." She describes her present fitness routine as "running for airplanes, battling stress and challenging authority."
Jacqui grew up in an athletic household. "My father was a gifted baseball and basketball player who, if not for WWII, might have been able to play professionally," she said. "My mother was a work-the-fields farm girl. My four brothers were big and gave me little quarter on the bases or under the basket. I grew up before Title IX, but played pick-up softball, basketball and football through high school. I chafed against the restrictions placed on women in the world of sports. It never made sense to me that women were strong enough to carry and bear babies, walked across mountains as pioneers, worked for centuries side-by-side with their farmer-husbands and still managed to care for the home, but were told they were too fragile to run a marathon."
She counts Peggy Fleming, Amelia Earhart and Babe Zaharias as major influences, because they were "women who defied convention and lived a physical life."
Jacqui discovered Melpomene through her work for the newspaper. "It has brought some wonderful women into my life, most notably Judy Lutter," she says.
She cites Melpomene as "an inspiration of creativity and commitment. Watching Judy and her crew take an idea and turn it into a living, breathing, successful organization is a testament to what we can do if we, well, just do it. And it is a regular reminder, like a friend whispering in my ear, to remain bodywise, to stay healthy, to care about and for myself."
When she thinks of Melpomene these days, Jacqui says she celebrates "women and movement, strength, grace, courage, wisdom, endurance, spirit, heart."
Ann Bancroft
Jenna Zark
Ann Bancroft describes herself as an explorer and adventurer, which is a slight understatement for the only known woman in history to cross polar ice caps to reach both the North and South Poles.
In 1986, Bancroft was the sole female member of the Steger International Polar Expedition, dog sledding 1,000 miles from Canada to the North Pole. In 1993, she led the American Women's Expedition to the South Pole and, in 2001, Ann joined Liv Arnesen of Norway to become the first team of women to cross Antarctica's landmass by foot.
Ann's father introduced her to a love of the outdoors by taking her on camping and canoe trips in northern Minnesota. You might say her career as an expedition leader began at age 8, when she convinced her cousins to participate in backyard winter overnights. Now 46, she lives on an 38-acre farm in Scandia, Minnesota. While others may consider her an "elite" athlete, Ann says, "I'm not very different from anybody else in terms of the issues everyone faces -- trying to find ways to eat right, and the ever evolving body with its changes."
Physical activity always played a critical role in Ann's life. She credits it with keeping her in school, where gym programs allowed her to develop team and leadership skills she wasn't getting in the classroom. "It keeps me healthy, mentally and physically, and more productive at work," she says.
She doesn't have a set "routine" of activities, enjoying instead what she calls "the gamut of exercise." Besides crossing polar ice caps, she likes walking, running with her dogs and road biking. Living on a farm also provides practical ways to work out that are just as strenuous as lifting weights in a gym.
Even training for her polar expeditions would be considered somewhat unorthodox by many athletes. Instead of using fitness machines, Ann and her expedition partner, Liv, tied tires to their waists and hauled them uphill to build strength and endurance. They skied, ran several miles a day and ski-sailed. This approach allowed Ann to train her body and successfully achieve her goals without spending undue sums of money.
When she returned from the North Pole in 1986, Ann was honored with Melpomene's Outstanding Achievement Award. Since that time, she has had an ongoing relationship with Melpomene, and became a member of the Board of Directors and Advisory Board.
"I've been influenced by the organization in many ways," she says. "Both as an educational source and a source of inspiration. I learn a tremendous amount every time the Journal comes out."
And she has met a lot of people through Melpomene -- from adolescent girls to older women. "It's one of these amazing organizations that hits a lot of people, and applies to all of us, whether we're dealing with osteoporosis, or not," she says. "Melpomene is out there answering many of the questions women have, and it is a great comfort knowing there is a large community of women dealing with health and physical activity issues."
Billie Jean King
Jenna Zark
Billie Jean King was celebrated by women everywhere when she won the "battle-of-the-sexes" match against Bobby Riggs in Houston in 1973; but she's known the world over for much more than that.
Billie Jean won her first of 20 Wimbledon tennis titles in 1968. She has won 71 singles titles, including 12 Grand Slams, and was the first woman athlete to win more than $100,000 in a single season in any sport. Inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1990, Billie Jean was named by Life Magazine as one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century. She was also ranked number 5 on Sports Illustrated's Top 40 Athletes list for significantly altering or elevating sports during the last four decades.
Now 58, Billie Jean lives in Chicago and is director of WORLD TEAMTENNIS, a board member of the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National AIDS Fund and the Women's Sports Foundation. In addition to her distinguished athletic record, Billie Jean served as a tennis coach for the US Olympic Women's Tennis Team in 1996 and 2000.
Physical activity "plays a tremendous role in my life," she says. "When I am active and working out on a regular basis, things are good. When I detour from that schedule, things just aren't as good for me."
Early influences on her decision to be physically active and healthy were many. "It was probably a combination of friends, nutritionists, orthopedists and others," she points out. She has been interested in tennis since childhood, buying her first tennis racket at age 11 using money saved from odd jobs. After a tennis lesson, she told her mother, "I am going to be number one in the world." Her mother replied that Billie Jean still had to do homework and piano lessons.
Billie Jean describes her level of physical activity as "balanced." She plays tennis at least two or three times a week, does about 1-1/2 hours of cardio exercise and lifts weights at least twice a week. "During my tennis career, my fitness commitment was one thing. When I retired from the tour and went into the boardrooms, it was something different. It may have different faces over the years, but it is always part of...
|
