Biographical Sketch
Re: Women’s History Month Assembly/Benedict College
March 22, 2005
Dr. Alma W. Byrd, the daughter of the late Frank Ernest Weaver and Annie Lou Spann Weaver, is a professor of foreign languages at Benedict College. She has served as an adjunct professor at Allen University and Voorhees College in Denmark, South Carolina and also taught in the public schools of South Carolina at the elementary and secondary levels as well as in several adult education programs. She has been called “…one of the most eminent women in South Carolina in the fields of education and community”.
A native of Aiken, South Carolina, Dr. Byrd received an A.B. Degree from Benedict College, a M.A. Degree from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. Degree from the University of South Carolina. She also holds a Certificat d’Etudes Francaise from the Sorbonne in Paris and a Certificat d’Etudes from Universite de Poitiers La Rochelle, France.
As a community activist, she has always considered the two most important assets a person can have are a healthy spiritual mind and a healthy body. This belief has guided her actions in private and in public life and accounts for education being her life profession and for constantly placing her in the forefront of efforts to eradicate diseases. She is a founding member of the James R. Clark Sickle Cell Anemia Foundation, United Black Fund, and the S.C. Osteoporosis Coalition. Additionally, she has devoted much time to various Heart Fund campaigns and prompting the establishment of the Cancer Center at Palmetto Richland Memorial Hospital.
Dr. Byrd served as a state legislator from June 1991 to January 1999. She was a member and Second Vice Chairperson of the South Carolina House Education and Public Works Committee. She was a sponsor of the legislation which created the MATE Program and legislation that led to the placing of the portraits of Mrs. Modjeski Simpkins, Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune, and Dr. Benjamin E. Mays in the State House. She sponsored bills that established the S. C. Osteoporosis Prevention, Treatment, and Education Act and the S. C. Gift of Life Fund related to organ and tissue donors. She has also served as a member of the Board of Commissioners Richland County School District One as well as on a number of governmental advisory boards, tasks forces, and regional and national education related groups.
She has received more than 130 honors and awards including The Order of the Palmetto, the State’s highest award. Several groups have named her “Legislator of the Year”. She has also been selected as an African-American Role Model and was featured on the first issue of the Bell South calendar. Additionally, she was named a South Carolina “Woman of Achievement” in 1999.
A Life Member of the National Council of Negro Women, Inc (NCNW), she served as a member of the National Executive Committee, organized and served as president of the Columbia Section. She set an historical precedent by establishing the Benedict-Byrd Section of NCNW which was the first college section in the nation.
Other professional, civic, and social organizations include Phi Sigma Iota International Honor Society, Phi Delta Kappa, alpha Chi Honor Society, American Association of University Women, National Association of University Women, League of Women Voters, S. C. Federation of Women and Girls Clubs, Toastmasters International, and Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc.
Dr. Byrd is a member of St. John Baptist Church in Columbia where she served as a Sunday School teacher. Her missionary work experiences span local, state, and national church bodies and prisons and her community services are widespread. She has traveled extensively in Europe and Western Africa. She served as an interpreter including the Second African-American Summit in Libreville, Gabon in 1993.
Dr. Byrd is married to Wallace Byrd, a retired educator, and the couple has helped eleven persons obtain a college education.
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