Mendocino County women to be honored: 39th Annual Women’s History Gala Celebration March 5

The Mendocino Women’s Political Coalition (MWPC) with AAUW-Ukiah presents the 39th Annual Women’s History Gala Celebration on Sunday, March 5, at the Saturday Afternoon Clubhouse,107 S. Oak St., Ukiah.

Everyone is encouraged to arrive at noon to enjoy refreshments and to bid on the Silent Auction items to raise funds to support the work of MWPC. The program will begin at 12:30 p.m..

This program will be dedicated to Mary Norbert Korte (1934-2022), a poet who left her life as a Catholic nun in the ’60s to dedicate her life to her dual passions, beat poetry and the preservation of the redwood forest. She spent five decades living in a cabin among the trees she sought to protect and typing her poems on a manual typewriter.

Her decades of fighting led to victory, the preservation of more than 400 acres of old-growth forest. Ukiah Poet Laureate Emerita Linda Noel will read one of Korte’s poems from her new book, “Jumping Into the American River: New and Selected Poems,” published by Argus Books/ TKS.

Three Mendocino County women who embody the 2023 National Women’s History Month theme, “Celebrating Women Who Tell Our Stories,” have been selected as honorees. Representing diverse backgrounds and each making her mark in a different field are: Dot Brovarney, Fort Bragg; Sarah Reith, Ukiah; and Ellen Weed, Ukiah. Through their inspiring speeches, the 2023 honorees will encourage women and girls to chart their own paths in making our history visible.

After living in Ukiah for many years, Dot Brovarney recently moved to Fort Bragg. A dedicated historian, Brovarney has committed her life to telling stories. She researched and published “The Sweet Life: Cherry Stories from Butler Ranch,” and she was guest curator and developed an exhibit of Carl Purdy for the Grace Hudson Museum.

Brovarney says, “I am fascinated by the ever-changing relationship between people and the land. I live in a rural region