Houston’s strong women make for great role models
In the blinding glare of the afternoon sun, her plane and his twirled wing to wing. Impossibly close, for them, this aerial ballet was improbably commonplace. Debbie Gary, a University of Houston alum, started her lifelong career as a stunt pilot in 1971, when no other women engaged in aeronautic acrobatics. She was the first.
Today, Gary is in her 70s. The Houstonian retired to a home on a runway so she can fly regularly.
Over a span of several decades, she was the star of her flying team and the media darling at uncountable air shows. She kept flying, even after some of her colleagues, including the love of her life, died pursuing this passion.
Gary is improbably humble. I learned details of her remarkable life not from her crowing — but from YouTube.
She is my role model for how to be a Texas woman.
So is Deborah Cannon. A woman of four careers, she spent years living abroad in Latin America. When recruited back to the U.S., she quickly climbed the ladder to become Bank of America’s executive vice president and president of the Houston region. Upon retirement, she was happily tak-
ing classes at the Cordon Bleu in Paris when called out of the blue by the Houston Zoo. Next thing Houston knew, Cannon, whose only zoo experience was loving animals, was redefining the stature of that beloved institution.
For years, our monthly lunches began this way. Cannon would look up from her mobile phone (she was always early) and say something like, “Sorry I’m distracted, but we’ve got a chimp in a coma.” She’d then explain how the anesthesia needed for any routine veterinary exam had gone terribly wrong. Or she’d share her worries about herpes (a disease I thought only afflicted sexually active humans) possibly spreading through the elephant herd.
What she never mentioned was her multimillion-dollar fundraising success, which took the zoo from concrete jungle to green spacious beauty. Nor did she talk about her masterful management of hundreds of employees, bringing the zoo its current service orientation.
One more of my Texas role models (there are many others; I have only room for three here) is Andrea White. White’s name is recognizable to many as the wife of our former Mayor Bill White. Most know her as his ever-present alter ego.
Few know that she is author of a half-dozen wildly creative adolescent science-fiction novels. In my favorite, “Surviving Antarctica Reality TV: 2083,” childhood education is conducted via reality-TV shows and all kids are required to watch a multitude of hours per week. When a gaggle of vulnerable kids are manipulated into reliving a deadly excursion to the South Pole, reality meets immorality.
White is always happy to share her latest book idea. What she doesn’t mention is her massive network of friends and graciousness as the ultimate connector.
Houston residents are becoming famous for their friendliness, kindness and generosity. For me, as a Houston woman — these women are even more; they are my role models. Grit admixed with humility and graciousness. Those are their lessons. Their friendship makes me (hopefully) a better person.
Houstonians are the survivors of Hurricane Harvey. We are the home of the Astros. We are strength combined with gentility — a model that I, and also America, could learn much from.
Roberta B. Ness, M.D., is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and author of “The Creativity Crisis.” Her column on aging appears monthly in StarHealth.