The Junior League of Greater Lakeland is proud to announce that Past President and Sustainer Emeritus Dr. Sarah Dukes McKay, our senior-most member, has recently received two more well deserved honors.

Lakeland Regional Health renamed its award for Advocate of The Year as the Sarah D. McKay Advocate of The Year Award. They further honored Sarah by granting her the first award under the revised name. This latest honor was well warranted, and Sarah’s gratitude was evident when the nonagenarian called it “an awesome award” and “a great honor” for which she would “try very hard not to break my arm patting myself on the back.” Laughter and applause erupted. Sarah followed this by saying that her service came “straight from the heart.” This comment elicited audible emotion and more applause from those in attendance, all fans of this one-woman dynamo.

Asked by her daughter, Sustainer Paula Mims, what Sarah would like people in the future who win this award to know about her, Sarah didn’t miss a beat. Her combined heartfelt and witty response follows and once again brought both laughter and thunderous applause:

“It has been warmth and friendship in my life that has sustained me for almost 98 years. And it is community that I also hold so dear to me and is so incredibly important. While the third thing is that my advocacy and philanthropy come straight from the heart, but if yours comes from the wallet, that’s okay, too.”

A native Lakelander, Sarah was also honored by the Polk County Historical Association with the Polk Pioneer Award for her tireless service and many valuable contributions to the community. In an interview by the group, Sarah gave a history of her decades-long League involvement with the Polk Museum of Art, detailing its very inception by the League as a children’s museum with live animals to its current incarnation as a Smithsonian-related art museum and teaching space which has recently become associated with Florida Southern College. Recalling the Museum’s first quarters, Sarah described one winter in the original old church building when it got so cold inside they had to “bring in a heater so the snakes wouldn’t freeze.”

Recognized as a “Great Floridian” by the Florida Department of State for her civics education initiative, Sarah joined a select pantheon of such luminaries as Walt Disney, Lily Pulitzer, and Thomas Edison who also bear this title. Sarah’s recent accolades accompany a lifetime of top awards from a variety of other entities such as Florida Southern College, the Lakeland Chamber of Commerce, the Polk Museum of Art, and The United Methodist Church. Not only is she a Great Floridian, but Sarah was included among five First Ladies and other leading lights as one of AJLI’s Notable Members.

In similar vein, the Junior League of Greater Lakeland created the Sarah Dukes McKay Award as our organization’s top volunteer honor. We are not only proud of Sarah’s many accomplishments, including board positions and presidencies, but we are happy for all the years she has guided and mentored our members. If gratitude was gold, Sarah could outdo Midas with the supply from our members alone. So to our very own Golden Girl, we offer our congratulations, our thanks, and all our love.