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I saw this come across my Google Reader and wanted to share.

Dr. Gina Francis

Dr. Francis is an accomplished veterinarian and writer who not only holds the distinction of being the first practicing Black veterinarian in Jacksonville, NC, but also the recipient of the Intriguing African-American Women award by the Northeast Community Development Corporation.

More about Dr. Francis and the award:

Honorees were required to meet two of the eight criteria – politics, education, health services, military service, business, civil service, community service or religion – set by the NCDC. Francis met six: politics, education, health services, civil service, community service and religion. Currently she is a civilian Veterinary Medical Officer with the Camp Lejeune Veterinary Treatment Facility and is a relief veterinarian for southeastern North Carolina.

“While I’m proud of that, it saddens me, too, because I think that there should be more,” she said.

Before she was a vet, Francis was a reporter with the Wilmington Star-News, Raleigh News & Observer and Jackson Advocate, in Jackson, Miss. During her reporter career, she won two North Carolina Press Awards, a New York Times Publisher’s Award and a Unity in Media Award from Lincoln University for a series on de facto segregation in Wilmington and a 15-year follow-up series on the Wilmington 10 case, according to her biography.

The Wilmington 10 case is the 1971 case of nine African-American men and one white woman who were arrested, tried and convicted on charges of arson and conspiracy to fire upon firefighters and police officers. They were sentenced to a total of 282 years in prison, according to the North Carolina Collection.

In 1980, their conviction was overturned by a federal appeals court.

When asked about her goals in life and how that relates to the bootcamp curriculum of veterinary school, Dr. Francis simply stated:

My goal is not so much to make them all vets, my goal is to give them the courage to do the hard stuff, to make them believe they can do the hard stuff. I don’t want them to sell themselves short.”

Awesome.