Issue date: 3/26/09 Section: News

While Lorelei Sims does not feel she is a role model as a member of the Charleston City Council, she thinks her position as a female blacksmith provides insight for newcomers to the Charleston area who have felt the blacksmith field is only for men. (Erin Matheny/The Daily Eastern News)

This is part two of a three-part series exploring the lives of influential women in Coles County in part of Women's History and Awareness Month.


"Because I am a woman, I must make unusual efforts to succeed. If I fail, no one will say, 'She doesn't have what it takes.' They will say, 'Women don't have what it takes.'"
--Clare Boothe Luce


The transition of community women into political leaders buds in Coles County like the cottonwood blossoms fill the courthouse square and Eastern's campus.

March is Women's History and Awareness month, and the women who sit in political office are taking notice. They sit in their offices with piles of papers like raked leaves ready for spring-cleaning. And in the spirit of this month, they sit at that desk decorated in dusted metal from welding, grandchildren's crayon drawings or gleam of the high noon sun on the glass and they speak. They tell their stories, their opinions and answer the question: Where are women now?


Beginning a career in politics

Charleston City Council member Lorelei Sims has chosen to step down from her service to the community. However, the sole female voice on the city council is not leaving because of lack of fervor for the process or the politics, but rather a concentration on personal wants and needs - "the things that make me happy," she said.

The lack of fervor was also not absent in her original bid for city council. Sims described her campaign as a platform she felt spurred from her concerns being ignored.

"I felt we needed a change, a different attitude and I wanted to present it," she said. "I originally wanted to run for mayor, but my friends wanted me to crawl before I walked and I ran for city council."

Jan Eads, Coles County board member, was always active and responsible. She found her place on the board through an appointment from fellow female Republican Jackie Bacon, who retired for health reasons.

Eads is also the sole female voice on the county board and in her last elected term became the only female chair in Coles County history.

"I happened to know someone who believed I would be a good at job I never really considered," she said. "Well, with that little motivation, I considered it."

Coles County Clerk Sue Rennels does not view her position as one that is political. Rather she is "there to help the community, showing kindness, honesty and care." She found her way to the position by working for both state Sen. Judy Meyers and State Rep. Chapin Rose as a legislative aid.

"I then followed God, praying and found my way to this position," she said. "Really, I asked him for help and God showed me why and how."


Being responsible leaders

Sims, Eads and Rennels all have their share of responsibilities in their roles as elected officials. They head committees, administer policy, address budgets, control records and other tasks designated by their office. But they have lives outside their offices and how they incorporate their personal agendas with the duties of their positions is what they find most difficult.

Sims said she is most proud of her work in her welding shop, Five Points Blacksmith Shop on State Street. As she walks her dog Ben around the shop and picks corn for the squirrels and birds, she considers her role as both a business owner and local politician.

"I think that my responsibilities are intertwined," she said. "I have to be a business owner and decision maker and owning my business has made me better at the latter."

Eads work as a realtor, wife and mother are inexplicably the reason why she is successful as a board member. Her almost seven-day-a-week schedule as board chair was only possible because of her dedication in her other roles.

"Owning a business and raising my children and being a wife to my husband gave me the foundation of good work ethic," she said. "All of those things are full time jobs, and they allowed me to work hard, never really realizing how tired I am."

It was thoughts about what her obituary might say that allowed Rennels to express her dedication to her children and grandchildren, the third, Zane, born Monday.

"You look at these obits and you see comments about their lives and husbands and everything, but then you see that she was devoted to her children and grandchildren, and that is what I want to see," she said. "I of course also want to leave behind a warm and caring office that helped the people that have a right to that very help. Its just me, not me the female, just me."

They come from different backgrounds and see their roles very differently, but these women come from a place where women are scarce - even in a community that "fosters and supports its ambitious women," said Sims.

They face politics on the local level but cover high leadership roles in the community. And sometimes, as the case with Sims and Eads, are the sole female voices in decision-making positions.


Hillary and Sarah

These female politicos differed in opinion on the two women thrust to the forefront of the cause for women to immerse themselves into politics.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democratic primary candidate for the 2008 presidential race, and Sarah Palin, Republican vice president nominee running with Arizona Sen. John McCain, were discussed as both representative of a block in the transition toward female representation and as a move forward in female competency.

"I think Sarah Palin threw women back 30 years," Sims said. "I think the things she said, her complete lack of know-how…when Tina Fey covered her, let's just say she asked for it."

But Eads disagreed and Rennels said she did not know how Palin and Clinton affected women's chances.

"I didn't see Sarah Palin's Republican candidacy or her policies as an issue that set women back," Eads said.

"I don't know what Hillary and Sarah did for women," Rennels said. "I think that both had their own positives and negatives, and that respect are people…just like men, just like you and me."


The female political climate

In essence, all three women saw the climate on the local level as amicable to female involvement. They cited Coles County as a place for women to be supported and gender bias to be non-existent.

But the number of women in the local political fields is dissipating. No female candidates are running for city council in the April 7 elections. The only other female county board member, Joy Russell, was beat in November's elections by her opponent.

"I think it is very upsetting to not see women stepping up to take a seat on the council," Sims said. "It is important for women to have a voice and they need to have enough ambition to step up to a seat that could have been theirs."

Eads believes that encouragement in girls and women to take on higher roles in politics is lagging, thus making progression in the field "too slow."

"Women are not expected to take these roles, not told to go for it. So, when they look at these positions and contemplate them, they are stopped by the 'glass ceiling,'" she said.

Rennels agrees to an extent, but believes it is fair to say that women often stand in their own way. A lack of ambition and a sense of being told 'no' are things women need to rise above.

Rennels does say that women need to understand that what they believe achieves their dreams.

"What is success?" she asks. "Each person has their own definition, and each person must define it for themselves."

She explains that success is no more a male idea than a female idea and if being a mother is an individual's idea of success, then they should not conform to finding success in completing male roles and vice versa.

"In the end, it's all about what makes you happy. For me, it's being a grandma," Rennels said laughing.


Krystal Moya can be reached at 581-7942 or a ksmoya@eiu.edu.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools

The Daily Eastern News encourages on-topic, civil discussion on its articles posted online. It is our policy not to screen comments before they are posted or edit them after they are posted. However, we reserve the right to remove comments that are off-topic, malicious, libelous or include excessive foul language. The DEN also reserves the right to turn off all comments on any story it deems necessary.

Comments violating copyright law will also be removed.

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be banned from commenting.

If you have any questions on our comment policy or wish to report a comment that you feel violates these standards, please e-mail a link to the article to our Online Editor at DENNews.com@gmail.com.