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What was supposed to be a brief role with the Harlan County Chamber of Commerce turned into a career spanning over 40 years for Gladys Hoskins.

Hoskins was 89 when she died Friday at the University of Kentucky Medical Center.

In 1963, she took a job as the secretary for the chamber of commerce before filling the role as executive director.

“She said that she told them that she would only take it for a short time,” said chamber president Dan Mosley, speaking of a conversation he had with Hoskins a few months earlier. “Up until just the past couple of weeks, she’s been as active as ever. She was the face of the Harlan County Chamber of Commerce for decades. Most people, when they get to a certain age they start to think about retirement, but with Gladys, that wasn't in her vocabulary. She was more dedicated to her job than anyone I’ve ever known.”

Among issues addressed by Hoskins in her capacity with the chamber, Mosley credits her for creating positive change by taking an unpopular stand on Harlan’s restaurant tax.

“She was very outspoken and very much in support of the restaurant tax, and if it hadn’t been for a few folks like Gladys, I don’t think that it would have happened. As a benefit, we now have a convention center,” said Mosley.

Those who worked alongside her on the chamber for several years say she played a very important role in the community for many years.

“She loved Harlan and gave all she had to make it a great place to live. If not for Gladys, I am sure that some of our age-old traditions would be gone,” said long-time friend and chamber member Dawn Nunez. “I feel that our Poke Sallet Festival, our Chamber of Commerce and our Christmas parade would be gone if not for the efforts put forth by Gladys when those things were declining years ago. She worked hard to keep those things going until they could be revived.”

Now the lights are off in the little red caboose that has long been her office, and chamber members say they will miss the woman who has for so long shared their work.

“Gladys supported all that was good in our community. She was a wonderful person who always looked for and found the good in people,” said Nunez. “She was a blessing to all with whom she came in contact. I will miss her greatly.”

Obituary

Gladys Fowler Hoskins, of Rio Vista, passed away Friday evening of July 17, 2009 at the University of Kentucky Medical Center she was 89.

Gladys was born May 12, 1920, the third child of J.D. & Ruby Lane Fowler. She shared that birthday with Florence Nightingale, Katherine Hepburn, and Yogi Berra. Because her father was a lumberman, the family moved often. She attended fourteen schools before graduating from Harlan High School in 1937. One of her goals was to raise her children in one place and she did, living sixty-eight years in house that she moved into as a bride.

From H.H.S. she went to Berea College, where her dream was to become a literature professor, but when her younger sister Mickey was killed in a car wreck, Gladys came home to be with her parents through the next year, and she got a job at the optometrist’s. She might have returned to college later had it not been that Robert V. (Bob) Hoskins Jr. was home from Tulane Medical School because of vision problems. He could see well enough to recognize the love of his life, and they were married in 1941. A prominent businessman, Bob was for many years the proprietor of Nu-Way Cleaners. Retiring from that work, he became vice president of Harlan Federal Savings and Loan.

Their first child, Robert III was born in 1942, and daughter, George Ella, in 1949. When her children were small, Gladys was active in community service and in the Harlan Christian Church, and in 1962 she went to work full time, first for Ned Breathitt’s gubernatorial campaign and then for the Harlan Co. Chamber of Commerce. At that time, the Chamber was only eleven years old and she helped shape it and maintain its dynamic force in the community. After raising her family she dedicated her life to community service, first as Secretary and then as Executive Director of the Harlan County Chamber of Commerce from 1963 until her death. She went straight to the doctor from a Chamber meeting on June 25, 2009.

Gladys was preceded in death by her husband, her parents, four brothers and two sisters.

She is survived by her two loving children, Robert (Betty) Hoskins, III of Harrisonburg, VA and George Ella (Steve) Lyon of Lexington, KY; four grandsons, Lane (Dorothy) Hoskins, David Hoskins, Benn & Joey Lyon.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Bob & Gladys Hoskins Scholarship Fund at Southeast Community College in Cumberland, KY.