Lucy Wilson Benson - Absolute Class

I can't tell you enough about how much I admire this lady!  My friend Lucy Wilson Benson serves as Chairman of the Board for the Amherst Cinema Arts Center, operator of the Amherst Cinema and the Pleasant Street Theater.  It has been my privilege to meet and get to know her whilst serving on the Board myself for the past four years.

In Virtue, One Gains Knowledge...

"You Never Can Tell!"  A devoted Smith College alumna, (Class of '49), Lucy married an Amherst man - Physics professor Bruce Benson - and has scaled the heights.  The phrase "distinguished career" is so often overused, but it fits Lucy like a smart Peck and Peck suit.  She became local, then state, then (1968-1974) national head of the League of Women Voters. Jimmy Carter named her Undersecretary of State, at the time the highest ranking woman ever at the State Department. 

''Don't ask me what it feels like to be a woman Under Secretary of State, because I don't know. I do know what it is like to be an Under Secretary of State, however.''

Lucy later served our state exceptionally as MA Secretary of Human Services under Governor Mike Dukakis.  A woman with clear head, a quick tongue - always constructive and right to the point.  A lover of life and funny as hell.

Two Beauties of the Silver Screen

Here is a nice profile written a few years back, in the Amherst College campus paper, about LWB.

I am proud to know Lucy - she went out to change the world after college, did so, and has remained our "United Nations of Amherst" treasure.

And her hair is spectacular!