Swope Health invites you to join our Women’s History speaker series, a lunchtime virtual meeting, featuring civic and community leaders in celebration of Women’s History Month. Each of the three weekly events is free and open to the public.
The first event in the series was held Thursday, March 14, featuring Dr. Penelope Martin-Knox, Superintendent of Raytown C-2 School District.
Dr. Martin-Knox joined the district at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, coming from Sumter, South Carolina where she was Superintendent of Sumter School District, serving 15,000 children.
Dr. Martin-Knox is a career educator with 29 years of experience in education.
Prior to her work with the Sumter School District, Dr. Martin-Knox served in several positions with Baltimore County Public Schools in Baltimore, Maryland, which is the 25th largest school district in the nation with 175 schools and 114,000 students. Her positions included the Chief of School Climate and Safety, Community Superintendent for elementary, middle and high schools, as well as the Assistant Superintendent of middle schools.
During her career in education, Dr. Martin-Knox has proudly served in the classroom as a high school music and reading teacher, a middle school instrumental music teacher, performing arts department chairperson, a middle school assistant principal and principal.
The second event in the series was held Thursday, March 21, with Sarah Tourville, executive vice president, chief commercial and community impact officer of the Kansas City Royals.
In her role, she oversees the revenue, creative/content, marketing and community impact teams.
Prior to taking the job with Kansas City, Tourville worked with sports media companies Fox Sports and ESPN for 20 years. She most recently worked for Fox, creating and managing the Brand Partnership Team. Her team was responsible for developing innovative and unique content offerings to support a business plan of $2 billion. She also led the strategic planning and collaboration for each of Fox’s major sports partnerships, including the NFL, MLB, college football and basketball, FIFA and NASCAR.
Tourville also spent 13 years with ESPN, overseeing the Midwest National office in Chicago. At ESPN, she was responsible for managing a team of 40-plus people with a revenue goal of $350 million across ESPN networks, digital, mobile, audio and print properties.
The third event in the series was held Thursday, March 28, with Janet Miles-Bartee, president and CEO of the Local Investment Commission (also known as LINC). LINC is a non-profit social services organization working in Jackson, Clay, and Platte counties in workforce development, employment, and family engagement. LINC provides services to children and families through its Caring Communities initiative.
Miles-Bartee joined LINC in 1999 at Ladd Elementary as Caring Communities line staff, and quickly made her mark as a community leader as Caring Communities Coordinator and Supervisor. She later held positions as Caring Communities Administrator, then Director of Caring Communities overseeing 53 program sites in six school districts and two charter schools.
Miles-Bartee was named Executive Vice President in March 2021, taking lead of LINC’s expansive social services network.
