Dr. Catherine Gira served as president of Frostburg State University from 1991 to 2006, 15 years. Prior to that she served as provost of the University of Baltimore.
Ruth Franklin, 1906 - 2001
Ruth E. Franklin attended the Mechanic Street Elementary School in Cumberland and was the Class Valedictorian in the first graduation class of the Frederick Street School (for blacks) in 1923.
Upon graduation from high school Ruth was awarded a full scholarship to Morgan College, now Morgan State. The scholarship was renewable each year, but only if Ruth stayed in the upper 10% of her class. Ruth did.
Lillian Cleveland Compton, 1884 - 1973
Lillian Compton served as the first female president of Frostburg State Teachers College, now Frostburg State University, from 1945 to 1954.
Agnes Carroll, 1889 - 1992
Agnes Carroll was born in Midland and graduated from St. Joseph's in Midland. She began her teaching career in Garrett County in 1907, and then at McCoole from 1908 to 1910. At that point she taught in her hometown of Midland until 1913. This was at a time when a college education was not necessarily required to teach, and although she later undertook coursework at Johns Hopkins, Agnes taught for 43 years without a teaching certificate.
Helen Colleen Burke, Educator
As a recent letter-to-the editor put it, “Mz. Burke was a community institution.”
Tamar Brown
Tamar Brown was an African-American freedwoman who is credited with establishing the first school for black children in Frostburg. This later became known as the Lincoln School. Identified in the census as a laundress, Tamar established this school in 1867 on a quarter-acre lot at the intersection of Park Avenue and Maple Street, roughly on a spot now occupied by the Compton Science Center on the campus of Frostburg State University.
Edith Bracey, 1893 - 1960
Edith Bracey was an elementary school teacher at Carver School, for African-American children, where her husband, Earle L. Bracey, served as principal.
Allegany County Board of Education - V
Dr. Cynthia S. Bambara is Allegany College of Maryland’s (ACM) fifth president and the first woman to lead the Cumberland-based community college in its more than 50-year history.
A Pennsylvania native, Dr. Bambara came to ACM from Virginia, where she was a veteran community college administrator. She had served as interim president of Central Virginia Community College, which she guided in a Virginia Community College System appointment as CVCC searched for a permanent leader.
Pansye S. Atkinson (1930-2022)
Pansye S. Atkinson was born in Asheville, North Carolina and acquired her undergraduate degree from Fisk University in Tennessee. She began her career as a school teacher in Georgetown, South Carolina and later taught in Baltimore City.