Jaqui Willis is this year’s recipient of Oberlin College’s Award for Distinguished Service to the Community. As anyone who knows her can testify, Jaqui is a warm, cheerful, energetic, and enormously generous person. Though not inclined to call attention to herself, she is one of Oberlin’s key bridge people who collaborate effectively across lines of race, class, and gender to build and maintain coalitions for progressive change in our often-fractured community.
Over the past 30 years, Jaqui has participated as a volunteer in a remarkable array of community organizations and has worked on countless ad hoc committees. She joined the board of directors of the Oberlin Early Childhood Center (OECC) in 1980 and served as chair of the board from 1982 to 1984. Under her leadership, OECC partnered with the Community Foundation to strengthen its financial position.
More recently, she has been active in the Oberlin Black Alliance for Progress, the Oberlin African American Genealogy and History Group, the annual Juneteenth celebration, the local chapter of Girl Scouts of America, the Lorain County Alliance of Black School Educators, and the Ohio Alliance of Black School Educators. She served on the Oberlin Public Library Levy Committees of 1995, 2000, and 2005. In 1999-2000, she played a major role on the ad hoc Oberlin Community Technology Committee, which launched The Bridge, Oberlin’s award-winning community technology center in 2000.
Jaqui has devoted special attention to Oberlin youth and the economically needy in our community. She has worked tirelessly on behalf of the public schools—most notably by heading school levy campaigns, serving on planning teams and advisory panels, and coordinating “Oberlin Goes Back to School,” a program through which local merchants provide K-12 students with free school supplies each year. While the school year ends in June, Jaqui keeps on going. During recent summers she has volunteered as co-director of a playground program under the auspices of the Oberlin City Recreation Department. She has served on the city’s recreation commission since 2002 and is currently the commission’s chair.
Jaqui is also current president of the board of directors of Oberlin Community Services (OCS). She first joined the OCS Board in 1999 and served as board president in 2004-2005. Under OCS rules, she had to step down from the board in 2005-2006, but she cheerfully returned the following year. Even during her year off, she remained active in the organization, playing a critical role in the search for a new executive director. As this record of commitment to OCS suggests, Jaqui’s generosity flows from her sincere—and seemingly boundless—dedication to making Oberlin a better place for all its residents.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1946, Jaqui grew up with three brothers in a religious family known for its supportive ethos. (By one report, “Their house was the one everyone came to for help.”) She earned a BA at Tarkio College in Missouri in 1970 and an MSL at Western Michigan University in 1972.
In 1977, she and her husband John Willis moved to Oberlin, and for the next decade she served as librarian at Admiral King High School in Lorain. In 1988, she became library supervisor for the Lorain City Schools, and she later became library supervisor for the Elyria City Schools. Since 1995, she has been a library media specialist with the Strongsville City Schools.
Jaqui belongs to Rust United Methodist Church, which she has served as lay leader, treasurer, and communion steward. She and John have two children, Leigh and Geneva, and a granddaughter, Khalilah.
Those who have worked with Jaqui Willis know this summary is an incomplete list of her achievements, but hopefully it conveys the magnitude of her contributions to the wider Oberlin community. What it cannot fully convey is her amazing spirit.
Jaqui exudes a sense of joy and optimism. Even in tense and tiring committee meetings, she remains upbeat and confident that solutions can be found to complex challenges and painful conflicts. Her faith in the potential of human goodness always shines through and acts as a catalyst for constructive outcomes.
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