A member of a family familiar to Tampa Bay area residents is being inducted into the Florida Women's Hall of Fame.
Gov. Rick Scott announced Thursday that Adela Hernandez Gonzmart is one of three women who will be honored "for their work to make significant improvements in life for women and all citizens of Florida."
Gonzmart, who was born in 1920 and died in 2001, was an advocate for the arts and the community. She attended Julliard School of Music where she received a Bachelor of Music and Science degree. After traveling the country performing music, Gonzmart moved back to Tampa with her husband, Cesar, and helped manage Ybor City's “The Columbia,” the oldest restaurant in Florida.
She was a community advocate and helped co-found the Latino Scholarship Fund at the University of South Florida. She also organized the Ballet Folklorico of Ybor City and the Tampa Symphony Orchestra.
She was the mother of current Columbia president Richard Gonzmart and chairman Casey Gonzmart.
Also selected for the honor was Lee Bird Leavengood, 89, who helped lead senior programs in the Tampa Bay area and was pivotal in the creation of the University of South Florida’s Division of Senior programs, now known as the Osher Lifelong Learning Center.
She also served in the first Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women and was a founding director of adult learning at the Tampa Bay History Center.
The third honoree is Janet Petro, 58, the first female deputy director in the history of John F. Kennedy Space Center,
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