First woman admitted to Auburn Pharmacy School receives nation’s highest civilian honor

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December 15, 2014

Bobelle Sconiers Harrell, a 1944 graduate of Auburn University’s School of Pharmacy (Photo: Harrell family)

WASHINGTON — Speaker of the House John Boehner last week led a ceremony to award Auburn University graduate Bobelle Sconiers Harrell the Congressional Gold Medal, considered alongside the Presidential Medal of Freedom as the United States’ highest civilian honor. Harrel received the medal posthumously for her service in World War II with the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a volunteer force of civilians organized to supplement the United States Air Force.

The Congressional Gold Medal is awarded to individuals “who have performed an achievement that has an impact on American history and culture that is likely to be recognized as a major achievement in the recipient’s field long after the achievement.”

But prior to Harrell’s CAP service, she was a student — and ultimately a top graduate — at the School of Pharmacy at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, as Auburn University was once known. In fact, she was the first woman ever admitted to the program.

A year after she graduated, she received her pilots license and began flying missions with the CAP, which had been established just days before the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and has since been called upon to do reconnaissance, border patrol, search and rescue and numerous other missions during various conflicts, as well as in peace time.

Harrell would later go on to become the first female licensed pharmacist in the state of Florida.

George Washington was the first American to receive the Congressional Gold Medal on March 25, 1776. Other notable recipients include Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill, John Wayne, Jesse Owens, Billy Graham, Frank Sinatra, Mother Teresa, Rosa Parks, Ronald Reagan, Jackie Robinson, and now Bobelle Sconiers Harrell, alongside other individuals who served in the Civilian Air Patrol during WWII.

“Today’s Gold Medal may be long overdue, but it’s well deserved,” said U.S. Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. “It’s the highest civilian honor we can bestow and we are all blessed to help bestow it.”

[h/t OA News]