{"id":2427,"date":"2020-04-15T16:21:08","date_gmt":"2020-04-15T20:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vapc.org\/?p=2427"},"modified":"2020-04-15T16:21:10","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T20:21:10","slug":"member-profile-nancy-wright-beasley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vapc.org\/vapc\/member-profile-nancy-wright-beasley\/","title":{"rendered":"Member Profile: Nancy Wright Beasley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What Do a Purple Zebra, Rotary, the Holocaust, and VPC Have in Common? Meet Nancy Wright Beasley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Terry Haycock, who conducted this interview in February<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photos Left to Right: Nancy in her purple Rotarian shirt; Nancy’s book; and Nancy with Patrician and Pete Low at a recent showing of the Saving Sara, a film based on Nancy’s book. The Lows are relatives of Neil and Sara Belle November, the subjects of the book and film.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I first saw Nancy Wright Beasley, she was at a podium\nintroducing the outstanding play Saving Sara, written by Nancy and friend Una\nHarrison and based on Nancy\u2019s book The Little Lion. Dressed in white slacks and\ntop, she spoke with a passion and dynamism that matched her brilliant geometric\njewel-toned jacket. I looked forward to our interview the following week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Virginia native, born in Radford and raised in\nChristianburg, Nancy came from a close family whose father was illiterate and\nwhose mother had only a sixth-grade education. Her parents asked their four\noffspring two questions: \u201cWhere are you going to college and how are you going\nto pay for it?\u201d Nancy says her parents did help, but she and her siblings had\nthe majority of the responsibility for their education. After meeting her\nfuture husband at Chowan Junior College in Murfreesboro, NC, marrying and\nhaving two sons, Nancy received her bachelor\u2019s degree from Virginia State\nUniversity in 1979 and a master\u2019s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University\nSchool of Mass Communication in 2000. She went on to earn an MFA in Children\u2019s\nLiterature from Hollins University in 2011 at the age of 66. Ask her what her\ndad said when she wanted to know what he planned to give her for a graduation\npresent. I couldn\u2019t begin to do the story justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two of Nancy\u2019s published books, The Little Lion: A Hero in\nthe Holocaust (mentioned above) and Izzy\u2019s Fire: Finding Humanity in the\nHolocaust, were written after many years of Nancy telling herself she couldn\u2019t\nwrite about such an evil topic. But Gwen Woolf, a longtime friend and VPC\nmember, was the impetus for writing about the Holocaust. It\u2019s writing she has\ncontinued for more than 20 years. Izzy\u2019s Fire tells how a Catholic family saves\n13 Jews during the Holocaust in Lithuania. The Little Lion tells the story of\nhow Sara Gillman, a Jewish child, was saved by her teenage uncle from almost\ncertain death in the Kovno Ghetto, located in Kaunas, Lithuania. In addition to\npublishing success, Nancy developed a love for Lithuania. She has traveled\nthere five times and to Israel twice to do research for her books. She has also\nspoken in Germany about her work and is scheduled to return again for a presentation\nin May 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nancy\u2019s travels have also taken her throughout the US\nspeaking at Rotary clubs with special emphasis on her experience as a polio\nsurvivor. An avid Rotarian, Nancy donned a purple Rotary polo shirt for our\ninterview at a local Panera. I don\u2019t remember what I had for lunch because she\nis such a fascinating story teller that I was totally engrossed, and I didn\u2019t\neven take many notes! Rotary has taken her many places physically and\nemotionally, and her stories are poignant as well as entertaining. What always comes\nthrough is her passionate commitment to others throughout the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another question to ask Nancy is how Rotary and NFPW\nconverged in Illinois at the NFPW national conference. She joined VPW (now VPC)\nalmost 40 years ago after being invited to do so by Katherine Calos. Both of\nthem worked for The Richmond News Leader at the time. In 2006, she was named\nthe Communicator of the Year by VPW. That year she was also named one of the\nTen Outstanding Women in Central Virginia by the Richmond YWCA. Izzy\u2019s Fire was\nnominated for a People\u2019s Choice Award by the Library of Virginia in 2005, and\nsince that same year, the Virginia Holocaust Museum in Richmond has had a\ncontinuing exhibit that recreates the story that includes 13 members of five\nJewish families. In 2015, VCU named her a Monroe Scholar. In 2016, Brandermill\nRotary named her the Rotarian of the Year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as being a book author, Nancy earned her journalism\ncredentials as a state correspondent for the Richmond News Leader from 1979 to\n1986. Her third book, Reflections of a Purple Zebra: Essays of a Different\nStripe, is a collection of 60 of her columns originally published in Richmond\nMagazine where the column ran from 1998 to 2014. Just the title is indicative\nof her colorful creativity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can learn more about Nancy at her website:\nnancywrightbeasley.com. Better yet, look for her at the Spring Conference and\ntry to get some time with her. She is modest, funny, wise, and entertaining.\nWhat more could you ask for?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Do a Purple Zebra, Rotary, the Holocaust, and VPC Have in Common? Meet Nancy Wright Beasley By Terry Haycock, who conducted this interview in February Photos Left to Right: Nancy in her purple Rotarian shirt; Nancy’s book; and Nancy with Patrician and Pete Low at a recent showing of the Saving Sara, a film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nMember Profile: Nancy Wright Beasley - VPC<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Virginia Professional Communicators\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/vapc.org\/vapc\/member-profile-nancy-wright-beasley\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Member Profile: Nancy Wright Beasley - 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