Friends and family of former Cincinnati mayor and council member Bobbie Sterne will gather next Wednesday at Memorial Hall to remember her and her contributions to the life of the city.
Sterne died Nov. 22 in Santa Clara, Calif., where she had lived in recent years with her daughters, Lynn and Cindy Sterne. She was 97 years old.
The memorial service is set for 11:30 a.m., Wednesday, Dec. 6 at Memorial Hall in Over-the-Rhine. Doors will open at 10:30 a.m.
She spent 25 years on Cincinnati City Council as a loyal member of the Charter Committee, Cincinnati's independent political party.
She served as mayor twice during a time when the mayor was elected by council itself. Her first term was Dec. 1975 to Dec. 1976; and a second time from Dec. 1978 to Dec. 1979.
Cincinnati Vice Mayor David Mann and Sterne's daughter Lynn will be among the speakers at the memorial service. g
Mann, who served with Sterne on council for 18 years, tells WVXU she was "an exceptional human being, a person very committed to doing the right thing."
As a young woman, she served as an Army nurse on the beaches of Normandy shortly after the D-Day invasion. It was an experience, her friends say, that forged the kind of toughness she displayed in arguing for her causes in politics and the compassion that she had for the city's less fortunate citizens.
She fought long and hard on council for human services funding – particularly for the community health clinics which serve the needs of low-income families. She was also responsible for the curb cut-outs on Cincinnati streets that made life easier for the wheelchair-bound.
She was well-known for driving a silver Corvette up to City Hall and parking on Plum Street every day.
In 1997, months before she was about to be term-limited off Cincinnati City Council, she resigned at the end of a meeting. She got up and left the meeting and the building immediately. She wanted no fuss made over her leaving.
The Charter Committee appointed Jim Tarbell to replace her on council.
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