82-year-old education advocate honored during Black History Month

Hannah Brown has experienced many firsts in her life, from being a student at a new racially integrated school to being the first Black and female station manager during her aviation career.

Brown, who moved to Las Vegas in 1945 at age 6, attended Westside Grammar School during segregation.

Years later as an adult, she became an education advocate who has pushed for a better education system in Southern Nevada and has served on numerous education boards and committees. She also has been instrumental in raising money to award college scholarships to hundreds of students.

Once Brown became involved with awarding scholarships, her involvement in education continued to grow.

“I got wrapped up in it, somehow,” she told the Review-Journal this month, adding it has been meaningful to her to help young people.

Brown, 82, is among four Southern Nevadans being honored by Cox Communications during Black History Month.

Other honorees are Constance Brooks, vice chancellor of public affairs and advancement for the Nevada System of Higher Education; Allen Stephenson, manager of field operations for Cox; and Lawrence Weekly, a former Clark County Commissioner who is chief of staff and chief diversity officer at the College of Southern Nevada.

In 1999, shortly after Brown became president of the Urban Chamber of Commerce in Las Vegas — a position she held for nearly a decade — the business organization received a $500 donation, which it divided into two $250 scholarships to award to students, she recalled.

The next year, the chamber raised more than $25,000 for scholarships, Brown said.

Over the years, the scholarship program — now known as the nonprofit Hannah Brown Community Development Corp. — has awarded about more than $400,000 in scholarships to hundreds of students.

Brown is also the namesake for Hannah Marie Brown Elementary School, a Clark County School District campus that opened in August 2021 in Henderson.

She has been involved with the school since the construction phase. Now, Brown often goes to the school up to twice a week to visit students and help out. She jokes with the school principal that she promises she won’t enroll as a student.

Michele Wooldridge, principal at Brown Elementary School, said the school’s namesake is one of the most selfless people she has met.

Brown has been through trials and tribulations while showing grace and poise, and is always about doing the right thing, Wooldridge said, noting that she respects her.

“Hannah is like a ball of energy that draws you in and you can’t help but do better things because of her,” she said.

She’s an amazing woman who worked hard her entire life and is a trailblazer in so many ways, Wooldridge said.

Wooldridge said she started chatting with Brown back when the school was under construction and wanted her involved from the beginning. “I wanted the namesake to be part of our school and what our beliefs are because she’s such an amazing role model.”

Before the school even opened, Brown met with students to talk with them about leadership.

At school events, Brown is a social butterfly and gives out lots of hugs, Wooldridge said.

Brown is beloved at the school, Wooldridge said, and there’s chaos when she walks into a classroom because the children are excited to see her and give her a hug.

Brown recently spent a couple of hours at the school talking with students about her background and what it was like growing up in segregated Las Vegas.

Wooldridge said she encouraged students to ask questions because it’s one thing to read about segregation and another to hear about it from someone who lived through it.

From Arkansas to Las Vegas

Brown moved from the small town of Stamps, Arkansas, where she was born, to Las Vegas as a child. Her mother came to the area looking for work and got a job working in the pantry at the El Rancho Vegas hotel.

Brown attended first through seventh grades at Westside Grammar School at the corner of Washington Avenue and D Street. The school is now on the National Register of Historic Places.

Brown attended eighth grade and graduated as the class salutatorian from a new school, Madison Elementary School, as part of its first graduating class.

She continued on to Rancho High School, where she was part of the first freshman class.

“That was exciting for me,” Brown said, noting her whole life revolved around being in school. She excelled, making the honor roll. “School was really fun for me.”

She said she grew up in a strict American Baptist family and was only allowed to go to school and church.

At Rancho, it was her first time attending an integrated school, she said, noting there were probably only about 15 Black students in the whole school.

Brown said she’s often asked about what the transition was like from a segregated to integrated school, noting the only challenge she had was all of the new friends she needed to make.

A friend encouraged her to run for a student body office, saying that everyone liked her.

“I thought there was no way I would get elected,” she said.

But her friend had started campaigning on her behalf, so she got on board. She said she ended up beating the socks off her opponent.

She said she was one of the first two Black students at Rancho to hold a student body office and served as student body secretary.

Due to rezoning, Brown attended the next three years of high school at Las Vegas High School, where she graduated in 1958.

A year or so after graduating from high school, her daughter Kay was born and she focused her attention on raising her.

‘Everything has been first’

Throughout her life, Brown has experienced a number of firsts, from attending brand new schools to being a trailblazer in her career.

“Everything has been first,” she said.

As a teenager, she worked at Larry’s Music Bar and was promoted to a manager position in young adulthood.

She later began a 27-year career with Western Airlines, which merged with Delta Air Lines in 1987.

She began at Western working in reservations, and became the first Black and female station manager — the same first she later held with Delta. She climbed the ranks with Delta until she was working as a regional manager at the airlines’ corporate headquarters.

Brown said that while in management roles for airlines, her colleagues were white males and some people commented it would be a challenge for her to gain their respect.

But Brown said she feels that when you treat someone with respect, they do the same with you — something she found to be true during her career.

In 1991, she was named by EBONY magazine among “100 of the Most Promising Black Women in Corporate America,” she said.

During her career, she lived around the country before returning to Las Vegas in the 1990s. She worked as a manager at McCarran International Airport, which was recently renamed Harry Reid International Airport.

‘It’s really uplifted the community’

In addition to her involvement in awarding scholarships to help local students, Brown said she secured a $4 million grant in 2010 through the Commission for the Las Vegas Centennial to begin the restorations for her alma mater, the Westside Grammar School, which is now a cultural center.

“It’s really uplifted the community a lot,” she said.

And about 10 years ago, Brown — while chapter president of the National Coalition of 100 Black Women — was talking with the principal at Kelly Elementary School in downtown Las Vegas about ways to help.

The group launched a Saturday tutoring program, which ran for a few years during summertimes, for 30 of the lowest-performing students to try to help bring them up to grade level in reading and math.

Brown has won many awards over the years and served on numerous boards, including currently as a member of The Valley Health System’s board.

“It’s a service,” she said about being on boards. “It helps the community.”

Many people know Brown for her time working with the airlines and “her deep connections with education and the Urban Chamber of Commerce,” but she’s also a longtime member of the board of governors first for Valley Hospital and now for The Valley Health System, said Karla Perez, regional vice president for Universal Health Services.

“Since 2007, she has shared insights into community needs and customer service with our hospital leaders and other advisory council members,” Perez said in a statement to the Review-Journal. “Hannah’s legacy will always be her commitment to improving the lives of southern Nevadans, and our community is a much better place because of her compassion, dedication and hard work.”

Outside of her career and community accomplishments, Brown enjoys knitting — a hobby she took up in the her mid-40s.

And she’s a mother who raised her daughter as a single parent. She said she never got married because she wasn’t going to have anyone else tell her daughter what to do.

Her daughter is now 62 and lives in the Las Vegas Valley.

“My biggest accomplishment,” Brown said, “is my daughter being successful.”

Contact Julie Wootton-Greener at jgreener@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2921. Follow @julieswootton on Twitter.