Four local women are the 1990 winners of the Susa Young Gates award for their outstanding service to Utah women.
Tamara Holden, Jane Edwards, Jean Smith and Diana Lee Hirschi join 58 other Utahns who have been honored during the last 18 years by the Utah Women's Political Caucus.Holden is a warden with the Utah State Prison. She supervises the young adult correctional facility, the Lone Peak facility (minimum security), and the women's correctional facility.
Edwards is the executive director of YWCA in Salt Lake City. She was chosen for the Susa Young Gates award, according to her letter of nomination, because her support for women and women's issues has been evidenced in the workplace as well as in her many volunteer efforts.
Smith retired from nursing after spending 40 years in the profession. Some of her most important work took place during the 1970s in the Uintah Basin, where she set up a practical nursing education program and prenatal classes. Smith is now a lobbyist for nurses.
Hirschi is a witness for peace. A Quaker, Hirschi followed a religious as well as a personal calling when she decided to live for a year at the edge of the Nevada Test Site in protest of the development and testing of nuclear weapons.
Holden, Edwards, Smith and Hirschi were all honored at a recent luncheon.