This year, SCAD President and Founder Paula S. Wallace inducted five new women into the Savannah Women of Vision, a program that celebrates key female figures whose ideas, leadership and service have shaped the community of Savannah. This weekly column will attempt to share a little more of the stories behind each of the fifteen women whose gold portraits hang on either side of the Arnold Hall Theater.
From her birth in 1940, Frances Wong was a lifelong resident of Savannah. She only left to attend Barry College in Miami, Florida, before returning to receive her masters from Armstrong College and her education specialist degree from Georgia Southern University.
In the early 1980s, Frances served as the principal for Myers Middle School. At the end of the decade she became the principal Windsor Forest High School. She ended her career as a principal at H. V. Jenkins High School in the 1990s. Her work at H. V. Jenkins led the school to receive the National School of Excellence Award in 1998.
Frances then turned to higher education and worked as an administrative leader at SCAD for ten years, serving both as the vice president for academic services, founder of the graduate mentor program and vice president for student affairs.
During her time as an educator, she was widely known for her big smile, friendly encouragement and warm interactions and became a model for many.
After Frances retired from SCAD, she became a volunteer advocate for Chatham County’s Victim Witness Assistant Program and helped to provide crime victims with court-orientation, referrals and assistance with financial compensation.
Frances also served on the Corporate Advisory Council of the Community Health Mission and on the Board of Managers at Hodge Memorial Day Care. Her work as a treasure on the Chinese Benevolent Association, which sought to protect the rights and safety of Chinese community members of Savannah, led her to co-found the Savannah Chinese Language School. She also was a devout Christian and became a Eucharist minister at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
Frances died of a heart attack at the age of 70 on June 26, 2010 but her presence continues to be felt by the thousands of students, parents and teachers who interacted with her and promise to carry on her legacy of compassion and good will into the education of Savannah’s next generation.
Elena Burnett is the Editor-in-Chief of District. She’s a writing major who will graduate in 2019.
