The following article was originally posted in the Tulsa World newspaper.
The Executive Director of the Surayya Anne Foundation, Allison Moore, has been selected for one of the 2016 Women of the Year – Pinnacle Awards. She was among the first ten women chosen for this honor. The award honors women whose lives and work help to empower women through community service and advocacy for women’s rights.
Also being honored will be retired educator Shirley Ballard Nero; Tulsa Community College vice president for student affairs Jan Clayton; former State Sen. Judy Eason McIntyre; Janice Edmiston, director of foundation at the OSU Medical Center; executive director of the Surayya Anne Foundation Allison Leigh Moore; Tracey Lyall, executive director of DVIS; Tulsa Public School board member Suzanne Schreiber; Tulsa School for Arts and Science teacher Ellen Stackable and Carlisha Williams, executive director of Women Empowering Nations.
The Women of the Year-Pinnacle Award is the result of a partnership between the YWCA Tulsa and the Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women. The Mayor’s Commission on the Status of Women established the Pinnacle Awards in 1987, which have been presented to more than 200 Tulsa women in honor of their work in fields ranging from arts and entertainment to reducing female incarceration.
The YWCA Tulsa inaugurated its Women of the Year awards in 2015 at April’s “Wine, Women and Shoes” event.
When the merger was announced earlier this year, Vanessa Finley, CEO of the YWCA Tulsa, said, “The new award and event simply and eloquently take the best of both organizations’ past initiatives and blend them together in a powerful way that celebrates the importance of women in Tulsa, while highlighting the current and future needs in our community,” said Vanessa Finley, CEO of YWCA Tulsa. The awards ceremony will be Feb. 5, 2016, at the Cox Business Center. A website, woty-pa.org, will have information about tickets and sponsorships at a later date.