Ms. Julie Stubbs and Mr. Petr Jirovsky

Born in 1928 in the African American community of Lost Creek, Indiana near Terre Haute, Dr. Perry earned a bachelor’s degree at Indiana State University in 1967. Dr. Perry’s first trip to Africa was in 1968 as leader of a team of students from Colby Women’s College (New Hampshire) to conduct a secretarial training project at the University of Nairobi, funded by Crossroads Africa. From 1971-1973, she trained a group of Peace Corps volunteers at Texas Southern University to serve in Sierra Leone. In 1974, she led a special educational delegation to Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Liberia. From 1973-1976, she trained Peace Corps paramedical volunteers in Kenya, lectured at the University of Nairobi and served as consultant to the US Information Service in Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia. In 1976, she was appointed Staff Development Officer at the UN Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa. Having joined the faculty of Texas Southern University in 1971, she served as an Associate Professor and Associate Director of Teacher Corps/Peace Corps, later becoming a full Professor and Dean of International Affairs from 1978-1982. In 1982, Dr. Shepard Perry was appointed by the Reagan Administration to be Chief of the Education and Human Resources Division in the Africa Bureau of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where she remained until 1986.

In 1986, Dr. Perry was appointed Ambassador to Sierra Leone by President Ronald Reagan, serving in that role with notable success despite political and social tensions that later erupted in civil war. In 1989, President George H. Bush again called upon her expertise, and asked Dr. Shepard Perry to serve as Ambassador to Burundi. In both roles she worked with keen intelligence to increase the stature of the United State and to navigate relations with diplomacy and tact.

In 1996, President George W. Bush appointed Dr. Shepard Perry as Regent of Texas Woman’s University, where she served until 2001, when he appointed her to be U.S. Executive Director of the African Development Bank, in Abidjan, and later Tunisia. After her retirement from this post in 2007, she returned to Houston, where she currently serves as Honorary Consul General of Rwanda, appointed by President Kagame, and confirmed by US Dept. of State as an honorary position.

Please address thank you letters to: Ambassador Perry.