Human rights ‘student’ becomes Laws Award role model

It may be the only major honor that Columbus’ Sherry Stark has not yet received.

But this year’s William R. Laws Human Rights Award winner worries that perhaps it should go to a more deserving nominee.

“The real champions are the people who you meet at the Columbus Human Rights Commission dinner each year. They are the ones who are deserving,” Stark said. “They are my teachers. I am their student.

Nevertheless, Stark said she appreciates the recognition that comes with the award, named for the man she knew as her Columbus pastor for many years. It will be presented during the commission’s annual dinner meeting at 6:30 p.m. May 17 at The Commons, 300 Washington St.

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A trio of human rights commissioners — Richard Gold, Greg Lewis and Annette Barnes — nominated Stark for her work in the community, volunteerism, collaboration and attitude about creating a welcoming community.

Barnes said Stark’s nomination for the award reflects all of her efforts for the benefit of the Columbus community.

“We just felt her contributions should be recognized,” Barnes said.

Gold said there were many great nominations this year.

The commissioners who selected Stark tried to challenge their thinking about what an individual is doing in their “day job” in terms of human rights and what they do on their own time.

“Last year we selected Larry Perkinson (Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. employee and student assistance coordinator), not just for his day job,” Gold said. “We found out he is doing this work (in human rights) 24 hours a day.”

It was in that vein that the commissioners selected Stark for her efforts in consensus and community building, her work to promote cooperation among people and her involvement in many initiatives, Gold said.

“Sherry does a lot of good work behind the scenes to advance the cause of human rights,” Gold said.

Bigger than life

Stark said she considers Laws, the award’s namesake, as someone bigger than life.

She met Laws, a friend of the late Cummins executive and community leader J. Irwin Miller, when her family moved to Columbus in the early 1970s to open the first branch of Kirby Risk.

“He had such a profound impact on so many people,” Stark said of Laws.

When she listened to his sermons, Stark sometimes took notes because of their layered complexity, so she could review the message and understand it, she said.

“He was ahead of his time — pushing this community and the country and even the world to be more inclusive,” Stark said.

Stark’s caring attitude about others came from growing up in Lafayette — a city where everyone knew everyone, and later marrying a Navy pilot and moving 13 times in one decade, which created a hunger to find a place to put down roots. That search for a forever home led to Columbus.

“It sensitized me to how it feels to be the new person,” she said. “When we moved to Columbus, I said ‘This is going to be my town and this is where we will raise our boys.’”

Oddly enough, she received a few comments that the Columbus community was made up primarily by Cummins families — and since the Stark family wasn’t one of those, it might not be as open to them as they had thought.

“Maybe I’m just obstinate, but I was not going to let the fact that I was not connected to Cummins as a reason to not fit in,” Stark said.

Getting involved

Stark started by volunteering in her church and the PTA, Cub Scouts and vacation Bible school. She joined the Columbus Service League and trained in one of the first Columbus Area Visitors Center classes for tour guides.

During that training, Stark said she was profoundly touched by a message from former Republic editor Bob Marshall, who talked about all the families of Columbus who prospered in the city and then gave back to the community.

As entrenched community leaders were moving on, Marshall suggested to the tour guides trainees that each Columbus resident would need to take responsibility to give back to the community.

Stark said she took that message to heart, and devoted herself to giving her time, talent and treasure to the community — but not in a way that indicated she had all the answers.

“I do have some ability to help people come together and listen to each other,” Stark said.

That skill led her to serve as senior deputy mayor and executive director of the city’s Community Development Department for a decade, executive director of the Columbus Area Arts Council for three years and president and CEO of the Heritage Fund — The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County for 12 years.

Stark said one of her best life lessons occurred when she was leading community development, which also included overseeing the city’s housing authority. The city had received a federal grant to put in a new, low-income housing project and her department was working to find a site for the development.

When word got out of the proposed location, many residents became upset in not wanting it in their backyards, she said.

“The city attorney took me out to lunch and talked to me about politics and how to get things done,” Stark said.

At the time, it was important to Stark that the new development not be right next to other low-income housing developments. She wanted the families to be in different parts of the community, and their children attending different schools during the city.

“That’s when I learned the value of having smart people in the room,” Stark said.

One of her board members, Jim Shipp, a Cummins executive, asked that instead of using the money to build one housing project, the city might instead buy houses all over Columbus, and reward people in public housing with a chance to live in a free-standing house.

“It was one of the first scattered-site concepts for low-income housing ever proposed in the country,” Stark said.

LGBT advocacy

Stark, who is being honored for creating a welcoming community and her advocacy for the LGBT community, said her journey in those areas has been a learning experience.

“I have three fabulous sons, one of whom is gay,” Stark said.

“When he first told me, I argued with him about it,” she said. “I spent a year talking to him about it. That was in the 1980s, and so little was understood about it then. I kept thinking then that anyone who was gay would die from AIDS.”

But through the process of talking it out with her son, and listening carefully in the dialogue, she began to accept and celebrate what he had told her.

“I have tried to be helpful to other people in the community on that continuum,” Stark said. “I think it begins by finding commonality.”

When exposure to a concept isn’t comfortable for some people, it requires finding common ground, she said.

The long-time member of First Presbyterian Church remembers her congregation’s decision to not just accept people of all sexual orientations, but to take a step forward and declare themselves publicly as an open and affirming church.

“We were doing it, but we weren’t saying we were doing it,” she said. “It was a challenge for all of us and not everyone agreed. But we have drawn in wonderful people and we are a growing and diverse congregation, and I’m so proud of it.”

Welcoming?

Another “aha” moment came as leader of Heritage Fund when she asked a group during a meeting to hold up their hand if they grew up in Columbus, and then asked if they thought Columbus was a welcoming community.

Most, if not all, agreed it was.

She then asked people who had moved into Columbus more recently, a smaller number of individuals, whose answer to the welcoming question was “not necessarily.”

From that came the Welcoming Community Initiative study, which led to the establishment of groups including the Columbus Area Multi-Ethnic Organization and others that promote diversity.

As for the future, Stark believes Indiana University bringing its Master of Architecture program to Columbus this fall will attract some diverse, bright young minds to the city who will knock our socks off with their ideas.

“Columbus will be their playground,” she said of the students. “How are we going to be welcoming to them? We need to keep our minds open to new ideas and new thoughts.”

Stark is still thinking about what she might say as she accepts the Laws award.

But she hopes the audience will know that she loves to lead groups and help them become more effective in achieving goals in the community.

“I tend to center on moderation,” Stark said. “I want to help people build consensus.”

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Sherry Stark, 77, has served in a number of high-profile positions in the Columbus community and the state during her career:

  • President and CEO of the Heritage Fund — The Community Foundation of Bartholomew County, 12 years
  • Senior deputy mayor and executive director of the Community Development Department, 10 years
  • Executive director of the Columbus Area Arts Council, three years
  • Executive director, Centra Foundation Inc., one year

Other community roles:

  • Chairwoman of the Columbus Regional Health Board of Trustees
  • Arts commissioner on the Indiana Arts Commission
  • Vice president, First Presbyterian Church Foundation
  • Commons Board vice president
  • Rotary Club of Columbus president, 2016-17
  • Community Education Coalition board member
  • The Republic’s Woman of the Year Award, 2013.

Family: She has three adult sons and five grandchildren, and is married to David Tiede.

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