Profile of Sue Errington
Errington blazes paths for women
By Rick Yencer
ryencer@thestarpress.com
MUNCIE -- Through dedication to equal rights and public service, Sue Errington has spent her life trying to help the community.
"It is all about opening doors," said Errington, who got into the women's rights movement more than 30 years ago.
Errington recalls going to hear feminist Betty Friedan talk at Ball State University in 1972 and afterward going to a local National Organization of Women's meeting at BSU professor Alice Bennett's house.
Back in the 1970s, there were few women in public service or non-traditional roles in Indiana.
Errington, 64, recalls how there was not even softball or Little League for girls when she came to Muncie with her husband, Paul, who was a longtime physics professor at Ball State.
One of Errington's first jobs in Muncie was umpiring summer baseball games. Although she endured heckling like "go home and do your housework," Errington and others started a girls' baseball league.
Opening the doors for women has had some unexpected turns in Errington's family. Her daughter, Sara, is a firefighter working in Syracuse, N.Y.
Best known as a Planned Parenthood executive, Errington chose teaching Spanish as a first career after graduating from Indiana University in 1964. She later earned a master's degree from the University of Michigan. She grew up in Atwood, a small town near Warsaw.
Errington worked on campaigns for former Democratic Congressman Phil Sharp and U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh. She also was involved in former U.S. Attorney Virginia Dill McCarty's bid to become the first female governor of Indiana.
The campaign experience helped launch Errington's career in politics, which began when she ran for a seat on Delaware County Council in 1992. She was the leading vote-getter that year for a council seat. In 1996, she made an unsuccessful run for the Indiana House District 35 seat.
Errington began a career at Planned Parenthood of Indiana and was executive director of public policy. She also was active in study groups on public health, alcohol and drug prevention, affirmative action and community corrections.
While she was council president in 1995, the county's debt was reduced from $4.2 million to less than $200,000.
She still remembers what some council members thought was a prank: Someone put a condom in her budget book, in apparent reference to her work with Planned Parenthood.
That prank backfired; other women in the county building viewed the stunt as an insult.
"The reaction was this would not have happened if I was not a woman," she said.
Errington's job at Planned Parenthood involved public education and advocacy, trying to overcome attitudes that women could not hold a job while raising a family.
"A woman's ability to have babies used to be something to keep women from getting jobs," she said.
Now, most people must have two incomes just to get out of poverty, Errington pointed out.
SOURCE
By Rick Yencer
ryencer@thestarpress.com
MUNCIE -- Through dedication to equal rights and public service, Sue Errington has spent her life trying to help the community.
"It is all about opening doors," said Errington, who got into the women's rights movement more than 30 years ago.
Errington recalls going to hear feminist Betty Friedan talk at Ball State University in 1972 and afterward going to a local National Organization of Women's meeting at BSU professor Alice Bennett's house.
Back in the 1970s, there were few women in public service or non-traditional roles in Indiana.
Errington, 64, recalls how there was not even softball or Little League for girls when she came to Muncie with her husband, Paul, who was a longtime physics professor at Ball State.
One of Errington's first jobs in Muncie was umpiring summer baseball games. Although she endured heckling like "go home and do your housework," Errington and others started a girls' baseball league.
Opening the doors for women has had some unexpected turns in Errington's family. Her daughter, Sara, is a firefighter working in Syracuse, N.Y.
Best known as a Planned Parenthood executive, Errington chose teaching Spanish as a first career after graduating from Indiana University in 1964. She later earned a master's degree from the University of Michigan. She grew up in Atwood, a small town near Warsaw.
Errington worked on campaigns for former Democratic Congressman Phil Sharp and U.S. Sen. Birch Bayh. She also was involved in former U.S. Attorney Virginia Dill McCarty's bid to become the first female governor of Indiana.
The campaign experience helped launch Errington's career in politics, which began when she ran for a seat on Delaware County Council in 1992. She was the leading vote-getter that year for a council seat. In 1996, she made an unsuccessful run for the Indiana House District 35 seat.
Errington began a career at Planned Parenthood of Indiana and was executive director of public policy. She also was active in study groups on public health, alcohol and drug prevention, affirmative action and community corrections.
While she was council president in 1995, the county's debt was reduced from $4.2 million to less than $200,000.
She still remembers what some council members thought was a prank: Someone put a condom in her budget book, in apparent reference to her work with Planned Parenthood.
That prank backfired; other women in the county building viewed the stunt as an insult.
"The reaction was this would not have happened if I was not a woman," she said.
Errington's job at Planned Parenthood involved public education and advocacy, trying to overcome attitudes that women could not hold a job while raising a family.
"A woman's ability to have babies used to be something to keep women from getting jobs," she said.
Now, most people must have two incomes just to get out of poverty, Errington pointed out.
SOURCE