As friends and community leaders filled a Columbia church to remember Natalie Woodson, a friend, educator and civic activist, the mood was far from somber.
“This is a day to rejoice,” the Rev. Ostein Truitt, an assistant pastor at St. John Baptist Church in Columbia, said as sunlight streamed through the yellow stained glass at Celebration Church.
Woodson, 79, a retired Baltimore City principal and the education chairwoman for the state National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, died last week of pancreatic cancer.
Mourners remembered Woodson for her “wonderful smile,” her dedication to children and her ability to leave the lives of those she knew forever changed.
“She made a difference,” said the Rev. Robert Turner, pastor of St. John Church, who delivered the eulogy.
As principal of Patapsco Elementary from 1973 to 1988, Woodson boosted the school?s standing and oversaw much-needed improvements to the school, according to her family.
She also created the state?s first annual NAACP Education Report Card, which uses an A-through-F grading scale after measuring the graduation, attendance, dropout and suspension rates for black students.
Woodson, who moved to Columbia in 1971, served as the education chairwoman for the Council of Elders of the Black Community of Howard County, which formed in 1992 to close the achievement gap between black students and their peers.
Howard Superintendent Sydney Cousin called Woodson a “bridge builder” who would come to his office and first tell him what a good job he was doing before saying, ” ?Sydney, we can do better for everybody,? ” he said.
NAACP members, Howard County Executive Ken Ulman and Howard?s state delegation all dedicated proclamations in Woodson?s name.
Del. Elizabeth Bobo, D-District 12B, read the delegation?s proclamation, which was perhaps the most direct:
“Natalie?s legacy rests in the many young people she has so lovingly guided and nurtured.”
