Auburn University Pioneer Receives the Congressional Gold Medal

Bobelle Sconiers Harrell was the first woman admitted to the pharmacy program at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, which is now called Auburn University. At Auburn she met and married Ewart Sconiers of the U.S. Army Air Corps. Before the end of their first year of marriage, he was sent overseas to fight in World War II. His plane was shot down and he was captured by German soldiers. Sconiers died in a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

Back in Alabama Bobelle, graduated first in her class in 1944. A year later she obtained a pilot’s license and joined the Civil Air Patrol. She moved to Florida and became one of the first women licensed to practice pharmacy in the state. She remarried in 1955 and operated a family pharmacy for 30 years. Bobelle Sconiers Harrell died in 2012 at the age of 88.

On December 10, Bobelle Sconiers Harrell was presented the Congressional Gold Medal in a Washington, D.C. ceremony honoring the work of the Civil Air Patrol.