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For the third time in its history, Mississippi’s Coalition for Citizens with Disabilities has awarded the Mark Smith Lifetime Achievement Award, this time to long-time disability rights advocate Jayne Buttross. The award was presented at the Coalition’s Torchbearer Celebration on November 30 in Jackson before a festive gathering of advocates, community partners, individual and corporate sponsors, and people with disabilities and family members.
As a young lawyer starting her career in 1982, Jayne opened her practice to people with disabilities, including Deaf, hard-of-hearing and visually impaired clients, and families of school-children with disabilities.
Shortly after joining Attorney General Mike Moore’s staff in 1988, she led an investigation into allegations of abuse and neglect at the Mississippi School for the Deaf. After an intense and thorough investigation staff and administration involved were removed from the campus and students were trained to protect themselves from abuse.
Jayne worked with leaders in the Deaf community and with legislators to pass the Mississippi Dual Party Relay Service Act in 1990, making it possible for people with speech and hearing limitations to communicate by phone. She later worked with Mark Smith, director of the Coalition, and with others to get home and community based Medicaid waivers in place, providing people in Mississippi needed supports to prevent them from being unnecessarily placed in nursing homes and institutions.
Jayne served as advisory board chair and then as a staff member of the Children’s Center for Communication and Development at the University of Southern Mississippi. She joined the Coalition board of directors in 2006 and has seen the organization through significant challenges during her almost 12 years as a board member, many of those years as board chair.
The Lifetime Achievement Award is given to individuals whose body of work shares Smith’s level of passion, innovation, tenacity and accomplishment while acting on behalf of Mississippi’s citizens with disabilities. Upon receiving her award Jayne commented “I’m at a loss on how to express my feelings about this amazing honor. To be in a group with Vicki Killingsworth, Christy Dunaway, and of course our award namesake Mark Smith, doesn’t seem just right to me but I am so humbled and grateful.”
Also honored at the event as 2017 Coalition Torchbearers were Assistant United States Attorney Pshon Barrett of Jackson; transportation and ADA advocate, Scott Crawford, Ph.D. of Jackson; Janie Cirlot-New, speech pathologist and long-time director of T.K. Martin Center at Mississippi State University in Starkville; mental health and developmental disability services advocate, Matilda Ogden Stephens of Natchez; Conservation Educator Cory Wright of Jackson; and de’ Lepee Deaf Center in Gulfport.
The Coalition, founded in 1989, is a nonprofit state-wide cross-disability organization that works collaboratively to expand opportunities and enhance the quality of life for Mississippians with disabilities. For more information call 601-969-0601.
