The Hope Lions Club heard a program on Monday (6-5) from Ellen Turner on the subject of Dorothy McFadden Hoover. Mrs. Hoover was a graduate of Yerger High in Hope in 1934. She graduated when she was 15, then attended Arkansas A.M. & N. (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff). She graduated with a B.S. in Math and then began teaching public school in Newport. Mrs. Hoover worked her way east to Atlanta University and earned a Masters Degree in Math. She started working at Langley Labs, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics…later NASA). She moved to Ames Laboratory where she became an Aeronautical Research Scientist and was distinguished by her design for “thin sweptback tapered wings” for jets.
Hoover became the first woman to be awarded a Master’s Degree in Physics from the University of Arkansas where she went in 1952. She was studied towards a doctorate in Math from the University of Michigan and after working for the National Weather Service finished her career with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. She passed away in 2000 at the age of 82 in Washington D.C.
Details of her life attracted attention after the book and movie “Hidden Figures” came out and focused on some groundbreaking African-American women who worked in the early space program.
Turner was introduced by Evening Lion Judee Gunter who arranged for the program.