Naval Station Everett celebrated Women’s History Month with several female community leaders in the Grand Vista Ballroom March 28.

According to the National Women’s History Project (NWHP), this year’s theme celebrates the originality, beauty, imagination, and multiple dimensions of women’s lives through their vision and art.

“I think it’s important that women are acknowledged as equal members of society,” said Pastor Judy Hoff, CEO of Life Ministries in Seattle. “That we are not only equal that we have gifts, and abilities, and talents that need to be used in society to make a difference in the world.

Hoff, one of the guest speakers, along with Shoreline, Mayor Cindy Ryu, and Shoreline Councilmember Janet Way, told their own stories to the Sailors at the event, encouraging and motivating both male and female service members to never give up their dreams, work hard, and honor the sacrifices of those women who have made our lives of freedom and democracy possible.

“Whether we are female or male, one color or another, we all need each other,” said Ryu. “I used to be really sensitive that I wasn’t like everyone else, because I use to be one of two minority children at school, so it was really obvious to me that I was different. And yet I realized as I got older that I could peg myself as being different, I could embrace that, and say ‘I’m female, that’s great!’”

Ryu, born in Korea, has lived in Washington since the 1960s, and has enjoyed a long and successful career in the health care field as an insurance agent, community leader, family woman, and public servant.

The celebration included a dramatic sketch called “I am,” performed by NAVSTA Everett female Sailors, in which the Sailors took turns reading the biographies of several famous American women, as well as the reading of a women’s history timeline by Storekeeper 3rd Class Juwairiya Yusuf, of Naval Operation Support Center, Everett.

“The program was really nice, and I learned a lot, especially with the timeline,” said Culinary Specialist 3rd Class (SW) Shonecia Bailey, NAVSTA Everett. “The minister was talking about how they take women from shelters and make them queen for the day, take them to the Embassy Suites in Lynnwood, and they make them feel really nice. It’s great.”

Way said that it’s important for each generation to remind the new generation that’s coming, how they managed to proceed and to achieve all they have achieved, including serving the community in political office..

“Women have had a difficult path, just over the centuries. As far as people moving forward in the their local, democratic process, it’s very important for women as well as men too see women in office so that they feel that that’s maybe somebody they could think about voting for, and also it’s important for women and men to get involved in the democratic process.”