Councilwoman Betty Ann Kane · 1988 Honoree

In our modern transparent world of politics, it is quite refreshing to observe that Councilwoman Betty Anne Kane embodies the genteel reserve, honest ethic and seriousness of purpose that could easily serve to give politics a “good” name. She has been a community leader on Capitol Hill for more than twenty years and has risen to distinguish herself nationally as an individual with the courage to stand for issues and the intelligence and skill to carry on purposeful debate.

Betty Anne was born in Teaneck, New Jersey and raised in several nearby suburbs of New York City. She is a product of public schools where she thrived on academic pursuits and played french horn in the high school band. Saturdays would find her in Manhattan for art lessons. It is quite apparent that she became enchanted with the resources of the big city and always seemed to return from home with some glittering treasures of culture, wisdom and independence. Fortunate for those of us who form her constituency, she grew to love the give and take of the urban environment.

Although Mrs. Kane’s communication skills are evident as we watch the evening news, it might not be as obvious that she is an athlete and very much at home in the outdoors. She spent several summers as the women’s director at a YWCA summer camp and believes that the exercise she gets swimming and skiing is important to her career pursuits.

Betty Ann Kane is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Middlebury College and has a Master of Arts from Yale University where she was both a Yale and Woodrow Wilson Fellow. In 1967 she came to work as an Assistant Professor of English Literature at Catholic University and settled with her husband, Noel on Capitol Hill.

She has much praise for the wonderful core of people who give continuity to the Hill. Her beginnings in politics are attributed to this tradition of neighborhood pride and the support of friends who worked with her to improve family life in our community. Four years of citywide service on the D.C. Board of Education was launched from “the kitchen table” in 1974, and followed Betty Ann’s parental involvement with with the Capitol Hill Babysitting Coop, Capitol East Children’s Center, Capitol Hill Montessori and Peabody schools. Other Capitol Hill organizations which bear the mark of her success include the Museum of African Art, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Capitol Hill Action Group and Capitol Hill Hospital.

Mrs. Kane serves currently as a third-term, At-Large Member of the Council of the District of Columbia where she chairs the Council's Committee on Government Operations. Her tenure and untiring devotion to office have made her one of the most recognizable public officials in the Nation’s Capitol. She is Vice-Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments and serves in varied capacities on many local and national boards and committees. Councilwoman Kane's consultation on legislative affairs is much sought after and she serves as Federal Relations Advisor to the law firm of Miller, Young & Holbrooke.

The people of Washington, D.C. are most fortunate to have Councilwoman Betty Ann Kane as a capable and compassionate city official. To know her as a Capitol Hill neighbor and friend is a high privilege indeed.