By HALEY GRIFFIN | Special to The Arkadelphian
Jane Lucas has been named the Woman of the Year not only for her long standing work with Group Living, but also for her impeccable sense of selflessness and service for which she is well known in this community.
She was executive director of Group Living for 42 years, an organization that surprisingly started out in the basement of a local church, having only two group homes at the time with 11 women and 9 men. Jane noticed that these men and women had working skills just like everyone else, but no jobs to use them in. That is when she began turning the organization’s focus toward integrating these men and women into our community, and using their unique abilities and skills by opening the Beehive.
The Beehive not only provides adults with developmental disabilities a sense of independence and purpose, but also normalization skills within a structured environment. Jane had a profound admiration for these people and felt strongly that their disabilities shouldn’t prevent them from being seen and treated as respectable, worthy individuals.
Jane paved the way for these men and women to become a vital part of our community. In response to being nominated Woman of the Year by readers of arkadelphian.com, Jane said, “I get credit for what everyone else does, but I’m just the quarterback. When you’re doing well you have to remember who helped you get there.” This speaks volumes about her deep humility and kind heart.
She was the first woman Rotarian in Arkadelphia, the first Rotary District Governor in Arkansas, and even met with Bill Clinton to talk about changing the wording that was in policies and bills in order to include those with a handicap — “and he did!” she notes.
Jane has made many huge impacts and advocacies for those with developmental disabilities. To better understand the daily lives of those with developmental disabilities, Jane put herself in their shoes by spending an entire day each as a deaf person, a blind person, and a person in a wheelchair. What she found was that they oftentimes went totally unseen, ignored, or treated poorly. This fueled her drive even more, to change the way that this group of people are viewed and treated inside the community.
She has set a lasting example and left an impressive set of standards for our community to aspire after. Her influence has been far-reaching, and receiving this award 6 years after retiring is a testament to her enduring legacy.
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