Zonta Club honors three women for achievements

Empowering women and building on each other’s successes were the order of the day Friday at the 2017 Zonta Women of Achievement Celebration and Luncheon at Ray’s Plaza Banquet Center in Cape Girardeau.

The Zonta Club of Cape Girardeau is a chapter of an international organization devoted to empowering women and promoting women’s causes around the world.

Three awards were given at Friday’s event: the Lifetime Achievement Award, Celebration Award and Women of Achievement.

Wendy Kurka Rust, honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, said the award was not about her, but about the many people who had encouraged and aided her along the way.

“Having a family that

The Honorable Mary Rhodes Russell speaks after receiving the Celebration Award at the Zonta Club's Women of Achievement luncheon Friday at Ray's Plaza Conference Center in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

encourages you to be the best you can be is God’s blessing,” Rust said, and thanked her husband, Gary Rust, for his unfailing support. Gary Rust is chairman of the board for Rust Communications.

Rust studied art at Washington University, specializing in oil painting. Her advocacy of the arts included everything from a mural painting at La Croix Church’s children’s area to donations to Southeast Missouri State University’s River Campus, where the Wendy Kurka Rust Flexible Theatre is named in her honor.

Rust also is the former publisher of Tip Off Magazine and has been recognized by various organizations.

Five of her six children attended the event, she said.

“I can’t take credit for the lives they’re living other than having helped bring them into this world, but I can be inspired by them,” Rust added.

2017 Woman of Achievement award winner Jessica Hill speaks at the Zonta Club's Women of Achievement luncheon Friday at Ray's Plaza Conference Center in Cape Girardeau.BEN MATTHEWS

Rust continued with a tribute to her late daughter, Robin, who at the age of 14 months died in an automobile accident along with Rust’s father, Jerry Kurka, and her sister, Sally.

“When she died, she left me a gift that made my life more meaningful,” Rust said. “Her tragedy brought compassion, empathy and love in my heart for all those who have crosses to bear, and I found out then, that’s everyone.

“I learned that it’s how we handle those challenges that gives meaning and purpose to life,” Rust said.

“But this award is not about me,” she continued. “There are so many that should be standing up here in the spotlight instead of me.”

Rust accepted Zonta’s Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of all women who try to put Jesus Christ first in their lives and who stop daily to give God the glory for his goodness, she said.

The Celebration Award recipient, Judge Mary Russell, is a Missouri Supreme Court justice, a far cry from her childhood on a dairy farm in rural Missouri.

Russell congratulated Rust and the Women of Achievement nominees and said it was an honor to be in the presence of so many outstanding women, including the nearly 500 people attending.

When Russell graduated law school in 1983, she said, few female judges were in the state of Missouri.

Three women now serve on the Missouri Supreme Court, the most it has had, Russell said.

Russell asked what each woman can do to help make the dreams of women come true, and she answered, “Be a dream maker.”

Encouraging education and mentoring were the two ways to achieve this, Russell said.

Russell also encouraged every woman to re-examine shelved dreams.

The 2017 Zonta Woman of Achievement Award was given to Jessica Hill, executive director of the Safe House for Women in Cape Girardeau.

Hill said people often assume her work at the Safe House must feel depressing or futile when in fact, the very opposite is true.

“It’s so amazingly transformational,” Hill said. “We are empowering women in ways that could literally save their lives, and I am truly grateful.”

Hill thanked her colleagues at the Safe House, her family, her mentors, her friends, as well as emergency services and law-enforcement officials in Cape Girardeau and the area for their help in bringing awareness to the issue of domestic violence and how to help survivors rebuild their lives.

“Whatever you can do or dream you can do, begin it,” Hill said.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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3257 William St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.