By BILL MARDIS Editor Emeritus
“I was shocked. I didn’t have a clue.”
Trudy Denham, clerk of Pulaski County, was reacting to being named 2006 Business Woman of the Year. The award presentation Tuesday was a highlight leading to National Business Women’s Week, observed October 15-21.
“I wasn’t expecting it,” said Denham. “When they read all of that stuff, I didn’t dream they were talking about me.” She was referring to introductory remarks by Judith Smith, National Business Week chairperson for the Somerset BPW Club.
“When they said the birthday (of the honoree) was in August and that she graduated from Nancy High School I looked toward the podium and my knees got weak,” Denham said.
Denham, the first woman elected to a major Pulaski County governmental office, emotionally walked to the front of the convention hall at The Center and accepted the BPW award. The ceremony was during the October meeting of the Somerset-Pulaski County Chamber of Commerce.
“(She has) executed the duties of her office with integrity, honesty, and fairness,” Smith extolled. “She always has a willingness to serve the needs of each person who enters her office, never favoring a person by their dress, be it a pair of bib overall, a dress made from a feed sack, or a three-piece suit. Each person is treated with the same service.”
Denham said she is honored that the BPW club selected her as business woman of the year. “I had the greatest day!” she exclaimed.
She remembers when she started working in the county clerk’s office in 1973 “I have grown up in this office; this has been my life. I feel I have been blessed to have been in the clerk’s office for 33 years.
Denham was elected four years ago as county clerk, succeeding Willard Hansford. She did not file for re-election and will retire at the end of her first term the last of December.
A member of the advisory board for Cumberland Valley National Bank, Denham is married to Bernie Denham, owner of a lawn-care service. She says she has no specific plans for her retirement years.
