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Boggs’ decades of public service helped break down barriers

Thursday, October 1, 2020

(Oct. 2, 2020) It was a full-circle moment for Judy Boggs, earlier this year, when the Worcester County Commission for Women named her as the organization’s "Woman of the Year."

Boggs, a former Worcester County Commissioner and Ocean Pines Association President, helped found the commission several decades earlier, citing a need to help elevate women's’ interests in areas of society often dominated by men.

Throughout her career, Boggs carved her own path. She is known for having unique and innovative ideas, and for her ability to get to the heart of a matter by asking tough, searching questions.

Born in 1939, Boggs grew up in a small community near Dundalk, Maryland called Water’s Edge. Her late husband, William, grew up “right across the street.” He passed away earlier this year, but the story of their first meeting is one she still enjoys telling.

“He was 11 years older than I was,” she said. “He went into the service and, when he came back, I was grown up. But, I still lived across the street from him.”

They later bumped into each other at a wedding of mutual friends. She was invited by the bride and he was invited by the groom.

“At the reception, he kept looking at me and looking at me, and he asked me to dance,” she said. “He finally said, ‘What’s your name?’ And I said Judy O’Hara, which is my maiden name. And he stopped and he said real loud for everybody to hear, ‘THE LITTLE KID FROM ACROSS THE STREET?!’”

“He was gone for three years, and I grew up,” Boggs added with a laugh.

First, a reporter

William “Bill” Boggs was drafted after graduating from high school and served in the U.S. Army. He would later become a supervisor at Bethlehem Steel and was active in the community as a volunteer.

Judy Boggs, meanwhile, attended the University of Baltimore, but never graduated. Instead, she picked classes that appealed to her interests and then moved on.

Boggs stayed home while their three children were very young. When they were a little older, she decided it was time to go to work. William, she said, was always supportive.

“Anything I wanted to do, any cockamamie idea, he always said, ‘Well, if it makes you happy,’” Boggs said.

First, she decided she wanted to be a newspaper reporter.

“Dundalk had one big, very popular paper. So, I went there,” she said. “This was really a man’s world, at that time. All the writers were men – all the everything were men!”

Boggs told the owner of the paper, the Dundalk Eagle, that she was looking for a job as a reporter. She told him she could write and knew shorthand, a skill she picked up in college.

“He said, ‘OK, let me give you a test.’ And I said, ‘No, I’m not looking to be a secretary, I’m going to be a writer,’” she said. “And I started walking out and he said, ‘Well, wait a minute.’ He looked at me funny and then said, ‘The Fourth of July parade is going to be next week. If you want to cover that, cover that and we’ll see how it goes from there.’”

The try-out went well, and Boggs worked at the paper for the next eight years – as a writer.

“I became very popular because I did my own thing, and I did things nobody ever did,” she said. “For example, I decided that I was going to interview all the churches in the area for their history. They loved it! The people who went to church loved it the churches loved it. It was a really big hit.”

Boggs also became popular for writing about local politics, but it was her coverage of a major new development that would eventually lead to a second career.

Boggs’ memory, she said, is a little fuzzy on the exact timeline, but Church Home and Hospital and Baltimore City Hospital were competing to build new facilities in the Dundalk area. She interviewed representatives from each company and wrote an article about their plans, with instructions for readers to mail in which group they preferred.

“The paper said, ‘Don’t be disappointed if nobody responds,’” she said, but her editor later called back and demanded, “‘You’ve got to change this! I have a desk full of responses!’”

Happy to oblige, Boggs redirected all the mail to her own home.

“It was boatloads of [letters] from all kinds of people,” she said. “And I was getting calls [asking] who’s winning? I wouldn’t tell anybody, but we had bags and bags of letters. The mailman had to come into the house and empty it onto the kitchen table.”

Next, a hospital administrator

Church Home and Hospital would eventually win the bid, and Boggs would go on to become the health care administrator for the Church Home and Hospital Health Centers in Baltimore.

“They asked me to work with them, so I could familiarize the whole area with what they were going to build and what they were going to offer,” she said.

Boggs took the position with the understanding that she would not work during the summer, so she could spend time with her children between school terms.

“They really liked what I had done, and they were getting a lot of response from the community – the whole area, really. After that summer I said to Bill, ‘You know, I really like this job. Maybe I better not take off the next summer!’

“I stayed with them for some years and did a lot of unusual things, for a writer,” she continued. “I was pretty creative.”

As an administrator, Boggs worked to make operations run more smoothly. That included a new program she created for those injured at work, sending patients in for immediate care rather than making them wait.

“They were used to City Hospital, which was very slow. I had people coming in and bringing their meals because they’d sat down at a table and waited. And I said, ‘Oh no, we’re not going to do this,’” she said. “I would go to all of the businesses around and say, ‘When anyone is injured, you can have them sent to Church Home and Hospital. We will see them immediately and then either send them back to work or put them off.’”

The program ended up with more than 200 companies signing on.

“They were happy with my work – but they also tolerated me,” Boggs said of her time at Church Home and Hospital. “I was just full of ideas.”

Ocean Pines and elected office

Boggs retired in 1992, and she and William moved to Ocean Pines into a home they designed themselves.

“We always had our vacations in and around this area, and we loved Ocean Pines,” she said.

At first, she said they didn’t know anyone in the area, but figured, “the easiest way to get to know people is to volunteer for something.”

William became involved in the Ocean Pines Players, building sets, while Boggs got involved in local politics, starting with the Ocean Pines Board of Directors.

Around the same time, in 1995, Boggs helped establish and served as the first president of the Worcester County Commission for Women. She was previously a member of a similar commission in Baltimore.

However, she said the idea was at first mocked by her male colleagues on the Board.

“When the Board of Directors found out that on the agenda that month was Judy Boggs, who wanted to have a Commission for Women … they started laughing and they started [saying], ‘Oh, we need a Commission for Men!’

“It was a circus,” she continued. “The men didn’t like me. They fought me and I fought back … I was elected president for a year, and, after that year I thought, ‘this is enough of that!’”

Then, in 2002, Boggs moved on to a higher office, becoming the first person elected to represent the newly created Ocean Pines district on the Worcester County Commissioners, the governing body for the entire county.

“I got to know people and then I was encouraged to run,” Boggs said. “They wanted me to stay for another term with Ocean Pines [on the Board of Directors], but I’m not a believer in staying and staying and staying.”

As a Commissioner, Boggs was known for asking tough and intelligent questions. It was a trait from her days as a reporter, she said.

“There was one time that I asked a question and there was silence, and then everybody started closing their books … and they ended the meeting,” she said with a laugh.

“But the staff loved it. I was very popular and friendly with the staff. I was asking good questions and sometimes [the other Commissioners] even learned something,” Boggs continued. “I read all the minutes and I had the questions, so the men thought, ‘Well, we don’t need to read the minutes, because Judy does it and Judy corrects them.’ And that’s how it was.”

In 2005, the Maryland Daily Record named Boggs one of the 100 most powerful and influential women in the state. Along with her seat as a County Commissioner, she also served on the Tri-County Council for the Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland, Worcester County Board of Health, Worcester County Health Planning Advisory Council, Worcester County Social Services Board, legislative committee for the Maryland Association of Counties, board of the Worcester County Developmental Center, and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Ocean Pines/Ocean City.

Boggs said she started volunteering when her children were little, first as president of the local PTA, and she just never stopped.

“I was involved with my children and I just liked doing things,” she said. “It was just part of me, I guess.”

In 2014, Boggs decided not to seek another term as a Commissioner. Again, she said she didn’t want to overstay her welcome.

“I did the same thing with the Commission for Women,” she said. “I was the president for the first term and then I announced that I wasn’t going to be president … I said, ‘There’s a lot of people here in this room that are capable of [serving].’”

Also, in 2014, Chip Bertino was elected to succeed Boggs on the Worcester County Commissioners. A fellow newspaper veteran, he also became known for asking the tough questions during meetings.

“Chip has done a good job,” Boggs said. “I just backed away from it.”

Bertino introduced Boggs during an Aug. 18 County Commissioners meeting, as the panel she once sat on formally recognized her “Woman of the Year” honor.

Proudly introducing himself as Boggs’ successor, Bertino said she "meant a lot to this community." He said that Boggs "advocated for numerous community infrastructure initiatives, including the extension of natural gas to the county, and conducted more than three-dozen town hall meetings to connect constituents to local government."

Boggs stood up and thanked the Commissioners.

"This was totally unthought of by me, because I never thought ahead. I just did what needed to be done for my job, which I enjoyed tremendously,” she said. “I really did enjoy being a County Commissioner. And I'm proud of the progress that the county has made, and I feel very privileged to live in this county –and the more I watch TV news, the prouder I become!”

Boggs said she's visited many places in Maryland and "nothing comes close to Worcester County and its people."

"I live in Ocean Pines, and it's very safe [and] very comfortable,” she said. “The people who live there are wonderful and giving.”

Women of the year

Among Boggs’ closest friends in Ocean Pines was the late Anna Foultz, who would often call for advice.

Boggs recalled one time, when Foultz called her in tears.

“She said, ‘I’m in trouble I’m in big trouble! I need your help.’ She always counted on me for a lot of things, but she really underestimated herself,” Boggs said. “She didn’t realize how strong she was.”

Foultz explained that she received a letter announcing that a national group had named her their “Businesswoman of the Year” and wanted to fly her to California to receive the award.

“I said, ‘Anna, that’s wonderful!’ And she said, ‘No, I’m not a businesswoman! I just do things for people,’” Boggs said.

Determined to help, Boggs got out a large pad of paper.

“I wrote down, ‘What does a businesswoman do?’” Boggs said. “And [Foultz] said, ‘They have an office.’ And I said, ‘You have an office, it’s in your house.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, but they make money and they have people working for them.’ I said, ‘You have people working.’ She said, ‘They’re not my workers, they’re just my helpers’ … and we went through the whole thing.

“It took two different sessions for her to realize that, maybe, she was a businesswoman,” Boggs continued. “She finally went to receive the award… [but] she still couldn’t believe that it happened. She was a great gal.”

On her own “Woman of the Year” recognition by the Worcester County Commission for Women – a group she founded and served with – Boggs said, “It’s very satisfying.”

“I’ve met the people who are taking it to another level,” she said. “They have a variety of women with various skills, and they’re doing a wonderful job and they’re creating their own programs.”

As for the young women who are entering new jobs or serving on new boards and commissions, Boggs' advice is simple.

“Be yourself. And don’t be afraid to be yourself,” she said. “Don’t let people make you into something that you’re not. You have to have confidence in yourself.

“And, if you want something, work for it. Don’t let anybody say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t do that,’” Boggs added.