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The speaker offered the final public words of the woman she was portraying. "There have been others just as true and devoted to the cause — I wish I could name every one — but with such women consecrating their lives," she paused and took a deep breath, "failure is impossible!" Then the house lights rose in the Sarasota Hyatt ballroom. Sally Matson, portraying the legendary suffragist Susan B. Anthony, received our standing ovation. Five hundred of us had been entranced by her. REVERING HER MEMORY From the era before the Civil War to the turn of the 20th century, Susan B., as she was called, crisscrossed the nation by horse and buggy, railroad and sleigh, braving heat, rain and snow, to speak about women's rights, "which are really women's wrongs, you know," as Anthony wrote: "the right to vote, to make contracts, to receive equal treatment within the legal system ... [that] ... all civil and politi- cal rights that belong to citizens of the United States be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever." She persevered for six decades through ridi- cule, defeat and cliffhanger votes. Her friend and ally was Elizabeth Cady Stanton, speechwriter, newspaper essayist, mother of seven. For an opening salvo, in 1848, Stanton issued her Declaration of Sentiments at the Seneca Falls (NY) Convention, listing griev- ances and resolutions. Stanton claimed, "I forge the thunderbolts; she fires them!" Stanton's husband echoed that remark. "She fires up Susan. Susan fires up a nation." Dotti Groover-Skipper, vice chairwoman of the Hillsborough Commission on the Status of Women, was honored for her leadership to help eliminate human trafficking in the Tampa Bay area. Photo by Barbara Dondero Sarasota News Leader August 8 & 15, 2014 Page 110