ND: CAT Bus Shelter Dedication Ceremony Honored Woman Who Gave Many A 'Head Start'
Capital Area Transit (CAT), along with Bismarck Early Childhood Education Program (BECEP), dedicated a bus shelter in honor of former Head Start teacher and director MaryAnn Anderson on Oct. 25,
More than 40 family members, friends, BECEP employees, CAT employees and community members gathered at BECEP for this historical event. This is the first CAT bus shelter to be dedicated. Just put up in September, MaryAnn’s shelter is new to the corner of Avenue C and 14th Street.
MaryAnn Anderson was a teacher, administrator, mentor and leader who began teaching at the Head Start program in Bismarck in 1970. In 1987, she was named director of the BECEP program in Bismarck. She retired in 2001, after 31 years of service dedicated to changing children’s lives. She continued to touch lives as a member of the Touch Board at BECEP. Her motto was: “One hundred years from now it will not matter what kind of house I lived in, how much money I had, nor what my clothes were like. But the world may be a little better because I was important in the life of a child.” MaryAnn passed away on June 11, 2012. MaryAnn’s shelter has her motto on it.
“We wanted to put MaryAnn’s motto on the shelter in hopes that it would inspire many,” said Pam Haak, the family advocate for Head Start at BECEP “just as she inspired so many of us. We thought a shelter was appropriate since she spent so much of her life helping and sheltering others.”
