[Oe List ...] Virginia Pierce Eulogy by Sue Laxdal

[Beret Griffith]

The memorial service for Virginia Pierce was held 
on Saturday, February 9th. There were many 
testimonies to her life given by her family. The 
following was offered by Sue Laxdal.

Virginia has been a presence in my life, a 
friend, colleague, coach and coworker for more 
than 35 years.  I know many of you could use most 
or all of those descriptors and would add others 
as well.  She was an amazing woman.

The generosity and grace manifested in the way 
she died was clearly seen in the way she 
lived.  She invited us in; allow us to be present 
to her dying, and in doing so to our own mortality.

Virginia and Lewie and I met in the early 70’s at 
a training course put on by the Ecumenical 
Institute.  At the time what we had in common was 
being young professional families just getting 
started and raising families.   We began our 
friendship based on the work we were doing with 
the institute which gave us ample ways to explore 
shared values.  We began to work with ICA doing 
local church renewal and community development 
and took on many projects.  We moved on to 
developing town meetings in the 70’s.

I believe that she was spiritual, although I 
don’t think she was religious in the traditional 
sense.  She had the qualities of empathy, of 
forthrightness, of forgiveness, and tolerance and 
fearlessness.  She was familiar with and trusted 
from the inside what I only know from the outside 
“Ken Kesey” and applied these qualities to 
herself as well as others. It gave her her center 
of gravity, like a gyroscope, that allowed her to 
be helpful to others is rocky circumstances.

Some of the uniqueness of Virginia that I have observed over the years:

Virginia manifested a remarkable gift for being 
present, for being in the here and now.
She listened.  Really listened.  Something in the 
quality of her listening invited you to speak 
from a higher place.  I recall coming into her 
cube prepared to whine, and changing my mind, 
many times.  She listened like she knew you could 
solve your own problems and that she didn’t have 
to fix them, she knew you could.  This made her 
invaluable to her clients, coworkers and friends, 
everyone, as she offered her.  One client story:

Virginia excelled at whatever projects or tasks 
she took on.  (Ask Katherine about St. Paul Companies.)
She went back to school or her masters in her 
late 40’s.  She put her teaching credentials to 
work as she worked with Mirja for former Gov. 
Arne Carlson on the proto type of the Effective Leadership Course.
She worked with Mirja to design the ELC which was 
taught to (how many) classes of state government. 
She designed instructional materials for Project 
Hope and worked as their HR specialist

When the Minnesota Facilitators Network was 
begun, Virginia was instrumental in its 
formation.  When the International Association of 
Facilitators was formed, back in 1991 she 
volunteered to share the lead on a task force to 
define the competencies for facilitators that 
could be used to bring credibility to this 
fledgling profession through certification of 
quality facilitators.  She was its driving 
energy.  IAF Certification events have now been 
held in Asia, Australia, USA, Canada, Europe and 
this year, for the first time in Africa.  A lot 
of facilitator trainers are now basing their 
curriculum development on these competencies. 
Eunice Shankland is using them with FAO (Food and 
Agriculture Organization of the UN) in 
Rome.  There are Certification assessors in 
Taiwan, HK, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada, the US, 
Europe esp. the UK.  And Certified Facilitators world-wide.

She had an unerring sense of appropriate process 
for her clients.  She combined common sense with 
kindness and generosity to guide clients to 
positive outcomes.  One session she led she 
reported being surprised that she had to listen 
for many hours and then summed up the discussion, 
and got rave reviews.  She said, I sat on my plan 
and didn’t facilitate and it turned out to be the right thing for this group!

She managed complex public sector projects at the 
University, Agriculture and many other 
sites.  She particularly loved working with 
Native American people on several projects.

During the 2001 IAF Conference Preparation while 
working full time, she managed the sponsorship 
development team called “flash and cash” to a record number of sponsors.
I was a witness to another example.  She and 
Lewie took on the initiative of creating a 20th 
anniversary celebration for Global Volunteers for 
500 people.  I recall the day we sat down with 
couple dozen volunteers and did action planning, 
and for the following months actually did the 
plan!  The event exceeded goals and was a 
smashing first for Global Volunteers.

I came across an old kindergarten report card 
that had a phrase on it “she plays well with 
others.”   Virginia did!  Most of the examples I 
just mentioned were done working with others – 
playing well with others at work.

And also, since 2000 we have traveled together 
several times.  We visited Scotland to golf the 
old courses; we played in England, hiking miles 
and miles in the North of England and playing 
bridge with sore feet.  We traveled to Australia 
with GV to work with an aboriginal community in 
Queensland, and spent time in Kauai.

Virginia loved the two years in China, year in 
Portugal with Lewie, and all the other encounters 
with other cultures she had. She loved it when 
she was asked to play a role in a Chinese 
movie.  She practiced her Chinese lines over and 
over, preparing as she always did for everything, 
thoroughly, but alas, she did the part but they 
dubbed the dialogue!  She was especially taken by 
Africa, its pain and its potential and its beauty.

Her legacy?  For me, the changed lives.  The 
encounter with someone who really “gets” who you 
are and who knew who she was. The proof that 
kindness and lack of ego can truly change lives, change the world.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/oe_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20080212/2cfc5dc3/attachment.html