Jane D Highsaw

She was born on Feb. 19, 1921 in Jacksonville, Illinois, the younger child of parents Ralph Dunlap and Sarah Louise Capps. At Jacksonville High School she competed in state and national tournaments in debate and extemporaneous speaking, winning three state championships. She graduated with honors from Oberlin College in Ohio with a degree in political science and earned a Master’s Degree in public administration from the University of Minnesota.

Jane came to Washington, D.C. as an intern at the Bureau of the Budget, where she was subsequently hired in a professional capacity. After a year in London with the Bureau during WWII, she returned to Washington, D.C. to work with the Bureau of United Nations Affairs in the State Department. In 1945 she married Attorney James L. Highsaw. While raising three children, in 1958 she began teaching American Government and Politics at Mount Vernon College in Washington, D. C., retiring as Chair of the Political Science Department in 1983. In addition she was active in national and local chapters of the American Political Science Association, the Public Administrators Society, the D.C. League of Women Voters, and for twelve years was a member of the Oberlin College Board of Trustees. A special interest of her later years has been the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy in northern Michigan, where she was a lifetime summer resident. Predeceased in 1992 by her husband of 47 years, James L. Highsaw, Jane is survived by her three children: Rhoda Highsaw Bush (Bruce) of Frederick, MD; James L. Highsaw (Linda Prentice) of Catonsville, MD; Carol Anne Highsaw of Chevy Chase, MD; and two grandchildren: Patrick Bush (Jenny) of Silver Spring, MD, and Sarah Bush Hechler (Jeff) of Ann Arbor, MI. In lieu of flowers donations may be made in Jane’s name to Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio (www.oberlin.edu), The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy in Traverse City, Michigan (www.gtrlc.org), or Audubon Naturalist Society of Chevy Chase, MD (www.anshome.org). A memorial service will be held at a future date to be decided.