Howard County Executive Allan Kittleman and the Howard County Commission for Women have announced the 2018 inductees into the county’s Women’s Hall of Fame: Patricia Emard Greenwald, Debra Ann Slack Katz and Joan Webb Scornaienchi.

The 2018 class of inductees will be honored at the annual Howard County Women’s Hall of Fame ceremony on Thursday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m. in the Banneker Room of the George Howard Building, 3430 Court House Drive, Ellicott City.

Pat Emard Greenwald

Patricia “Pat” Emard Greenwald’s life in Howard County has been “a tale of three schoolhouses.” She got the historic preservation bug in the 1980s while teaching at Hammond Middle School. In 1988, while touring Pfeiffer’s Corner Schoolhouse, her seventh-grade students learned the schoolhouse’s existence was being threatened by plans for a subdivision, so, Emard Greenwald and her students solicited the community for donations to move the building, then persuaded the county’s Department of Recreation & Parks to restore and reopen the schoolhouse to the public. In 2003, it was finally moved to Rockburn Branch Park, its permanent home.

In addition, while serving on the Sykesville Historic District Commission, Emard Greenwald was asked by the Town of Sykesville to manage the restoration of the Historic Sykesville Colored Schoolhouse, which reopened its doors in 2006; as first vice president of the Howard County Historical Society, today she is involved in the rehabilitation of the Quaker School, in Ellicott City, which is destined to become a children’s museum.

Debbie Ann Slack Katz

Debra “Debbie” Ann Slack Katz has worked at all nursing levels, from staff nurse to director of nursing, and in a variety of clinical settings, including the emergency room, post-anesthesia care unit, mental health and pediatrics. Her acute care experience includes the Cleveland Clinic, The Johns Hopkins Hospital and Howard County General Hospital, where she continues to work as a community outreach nurse. Slack Katz currently works in risk management at Genesis Health Care as the corporate director of safe resident handling.

When not nursing, Slack Katz can be found chairing the Historic Ellicott City Flood Workgroup and serving as vice president of the Ellicott City Partnership, as well as on the Ellicott City Master Plan Advisory Committee; she also has served on more than 24 boards and commissions. Her mother, Doris Thompson Slack, was inducted into the Howard County Women’s Hall of Fame in 2009.

Joan Webb Scornaienchi

HC DrugFree Executive Director Joan Webb Scornaienchi’s career spans more than 25 years in education, including extensive experience in higher education, expertise as a grants and education specialist with the Maryland State Department of Education, and technical skills as a certified grants management specialist. She is also a graduate of Leadership Maryland, Leadership Howard County and the Federal Bureau of Investigation Citizens Academy.

Also dotting Webb Scornaienchi’s résumé is her eighth consecutive term as chair of the Howard County Alcohol and Drug Abuse Advisory Board and her fifth year as vice chair of the Howard County Public School System’s (HCPSS) Health Council, and she continues to serve on HCPSS’s Mental Health Task Force. She is also a past chair of the Howard County Commission for Women. Finally, she is the recipient of a number of awards, including The Daily Record’s Maryland’s Top 100 Women, Most Admired CEOs and Innovator of the Year awards, among others.

The Women’s Hall of Fame induction event is free and open to the public. To request an interpreter or other accommodations, call the Department of Community Resources & Services at 410-313-6400 (voice/relay).