Page 15 - Florida Sentinel 6-23-17

Features
Health Advocate
Attorney Recognized At College’s Distinguished Alumni Awards
To Address
Monthly Forum
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
Last month, family mem- bers and friends attended the Florida A & M Univer- sity, College of Law for their “Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony.” The event was held in Orlando at the College of Law Atrium.
Atty. Lynda Blair was honored and presented the Professional Excellence Award. Atty. Blair is the Diversity & Inclusion Mana- ger at Kilpatrick Townsend Law Firm. This award is presented to a FAMU Col- lege of Law graduate whose accomplishments and con- tributions have enhanced the school and the profes- sion of law at the local, state, national, or interna- tional level.
She was presented the award by FAMU Interim President Larry Robin- son.
A native of Atlanta, Atty. Blair was a member of the first enrollment class at FAMU College of Law. She earned her law degree in 2007.
Becoming an attorney was always a desire of Atty. Blair. Her opportunity to pursue that goal came about during her employment at Tropicana. When the com- pany was purchased by Pepsi, the corporate offices were relocated to Chicago, her husband said.
For several years, Atty. Blair commuted from Bradenton, where she was employed to Orlando to at- tend law school. She gradu- ated after 5 years of commuting.
While the act of balancing work, family, and school would be an awesome task for most, Atty. Blair also had health issues. She had
Mrs. Lynda Blair is shown with Florida A & M University In- terim President Larry Robinson at the ceremony.
Atty. Blair is shown with her family members, her sons Reed, and Jonathan, and husband, Marlow Blair at the ceremony.
undergone a kidney trans- plant while in school, but never gave up on her dream.
Upon completion of school and all of its require- ments, Mrs. Blair found em- ployment in her field within a year of graduating.
After graduating from high school, Atty. Blair continued her education at Tuskegee University, where she earned her B. S. degree in Business Administration. She also earned an MBA in Finance and a Certificate of African American Leader- ship from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management.
Atty. Blair is also a member of Delta Sigma
Theta Sorority, Inc. and Allen Temple AME Church. She is married to Marlow Blair and the mother of two sons, Jonathan and Reed, both of whom are entering their third year at Stetson Law School in the fall.
She is an active member of the State Bar of Georgia Diversity Programs Steering Committee, African Ameri- can Partnership Board of the Greater Atlanta United Way, National Association of Women Lawyers, the Na- tional Association of Law Firm Diversity Profession- als, and a former member of the FAMU, and College of Law Alumni Council.
BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor
Each month, the Men and Women’s Health Forum has provided information for the general public. The forum is held at the College Hill Church Of God In Christ, 6414 N. 30th Street, where Superintendent Charles Davis is the pastor. It begins at 11 a.m., and features a guest speaker from the com- munity.
This month, the guest speaker is Ms. Cynthia Ozepher Keeton. A Tampa native, Ms. Keeton has an extensive history in improv- ing health conditions for res- idents, especially children.
She currently lends her tal- ents to the Tampa Bay Asthma Coalition as its Chair- person. A not-for-profit or- ganization, the facility promotes self-management care to families struggling with the illness.
During her tenure in the health care profession, Ms. Keeton has developed sev- eral training programs for the Hillsborough County com- munity. In 1999, she invited the community, city and county officials to attend a Round Table Talk on Child- hood Lead Poisoning Preven- tion. As a result of that meeting, 65 community part- ners joined the Community Partners Against Lead/Healthy Homes Coali- tion. Another program she created is the “train-the- trainer” program for children. Approximately 5,000 chil- dren were deputized as Offi- cial Lead Detectives.
She works to promote healthy lifestyles by encour- aging residents to walk, skate, ride bicycles, jump rope, line dance, or to participate in other activities to promote
MS. CYNTHIA O. KEETON ... Guest speaker at Health Forum
physical fitness.
Ms. Keeton became the
first Coordinator for the fed- erally funded breast cancer research for Florida to en- courage African American and Puerto Rican women to participate in a breast cancer study in 2002.
She earned her B. S. De- gree in Chemistry from the Savannah State College in 1971. Ms. Keeton then launched her career as a Chemist with Hunt Wesson Foods, Inc.
She includes among her mottos, “Each one teaches one,” and “A hundred years from now it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove ... but the world may be different because I was important in the life of a child.”
The forum is free, open to the public, and men and women are encouraged to at- tend. For additional informa- tion about the forum contact, David Snow, III, at (813) 493-5772, Coach Billy Reed, at (813) 744-4923, or Chester White, Jr., at (813) 327-2804.
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