4 inducted to NSU’s Hall of Fame

Four Louisiana women – a real estate magnate, the head of a post-Katrina grassroots flood protection group, the first woman head of a university system in Louisiana and an attorney/oil company executive – will be inducted Friday into Nicholls State University’s Louisiana Center for Women and Government Hall of Fame.

The luncheon will be held at the Warren J. Harang Jr. Municipal Auditorium in Thibodaux.

Kitty DeGree of Monroe, Sandy Rosenthal of New Orleans, Dr. Dolores Spikes of Baton Rouge and Phyllis Taylor of New Orleans are this year’s honorees.

The center will also present its Blue Ribbon Award to WWL-TV Morning News Show with Eric Paulsen and Sally Ann Roberts for their reporting of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. And former governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco will be given a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Actress Dixie Carter, best known for her role as Julia Sugarbaker, the level-headed interior decorator of TV’s “Designing Women,” is the keynote speaker for the luncheon.

A New Hampshire native, DeGree moved to Monroe with her husband in 1946. Over the years, she held various positions, eventually amassing a multi-million dollar real estate empire. Her extensive philanthropic and personal contributions are extensive, including gifts to the University of Louisiana at Monroe and the Kitty DeGree Breast Health Center at St. Francis Medical Center. She has also served on a number of boards, including the Ronald McDonald House and the Veterans Home of Northeast Louisiana.

Rosenthal is the founder of Levees.Org. The non-partisan, non-profit grassroots group’s 19,000-plus members advocate effective flood control and protection in New Orleans and nationwide. Levees.Org was instrumental in adding U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ reform measures to the 2007 Water Resources Development Act. It also fought to have a fairer share of Gulf of Mexico offshore drilling royalties awarded to Louisiana.

Spikes is the first black woman to be awarded a doctorate in math from Louisiana State University, the first woman president of a public, four-year state institution of higher education and the first woman to head a university system in Louisiana – the Southern University System. She sits on the directors’ boards of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education and the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges.

Taylor is chairwoman and chief executive officer of Taylor Energy Company L.L.C., which was founded by her late husband in 1979. A graduate of Tulane University School of Law, she serves as chairwoman and president of the Patrick F. Taylor Foundation, a philanthropic organization benefiting education, law enforcement, the military and other humanitarian efforts. She serves on a number of boards, including the New Orleans Business Council, the New Horizons for Educational Excellence Advisory Council, the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation, the Catholic Cultural Heritage Center and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Tickets for the ceremony are $50 each, $320 for a table of eight and $400 for a table of 10. The price includes a coffee and cocktail reception at 10:30 a.m. and the noon luncheon.

For reservations, contact the center at lcwg.info@nicholls.edu.