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Hana L. Stith is a native of Fort Wayne, Indiana and attended all local schools. After graduation from high school, she attended Wilberforce University, in Zenia, Ohio, on a scholarship awarded to her from the 4th District of the AME Church. She received both her Bachelors and Masters Degrees from St. Francis College and Certification in Guidance and Counseling from Purdue University. She has done additional study at Ball State, Indiana and Indiana Wesleyan University’s Extensions.
Stith was the first African-American teacher to be hired at McCulloch School, where she taught for seventeen years, at which time the school was closed. There she made friends and gained respect across the city as she became recognized for her teaching skills and compassion for children. She started and spent most of her 36 year teaching career in inner-city schools, where she felt she was most needed. Stith was a classroom teacher for 22 years and a Title One Teacher for 14 years. To this day, she still has relationships with a number of her first students, their children and grandchildren.
Stith has been active in her community and church as long as she can remember, she joined the first branch of the Junior NAACP, in the city, while still in high school, and she was an original member of the Fair Housing Group and the Panel of American Women. She was the first women ever to serve on the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission; she was on the commission for twelve years. Stith served under four mayors, the longest years in history. Following these years, she was on the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission for four years and then six years on the Board of Safety.
Stith is a life long member of Turner Chapel AME Church and has served as a Sunday School Teacher, Dean of the first Vacation Bible School, Director of Christian Education, a Trustee for 18 years and now serves as the Church Historian.
Stith retired from Fort Wayne Community Schools in 1996. Since retirement, she served as a docent at the Lincoln Museum, on the Executive Board of the NAACP, and a founder of the African/African-American Historical Society/Museum of which she is the General Manager and Curator.
Stith has received awards too numerous to name, she is proud of each one, however her most coveted award is “ The Sagamores of the Wabash” received on April 10, 2004.
She is married to Harold Stith, the first African American Plumbing Contractor in Fort Wayne. She has one daughter, an attorney in Columbus, Ohio and a 13 year old granddaughter, who was an “Apollo Kid Star of Tomorrow” New York City, October 2, 2006.
Hana Stith believes when a change is needed, it begins with you. She is a relentless worker.
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