User:Joanporoskijennings/sandbox

Joan (Poroski) Jennings. Born May 4, 1946 in Yonkers, NY to Frank and Lottie Poroski. Joan attended St. Casimir's RC School in Yonkers and then Maria Regina HS in Hartsdale, NY. Joan was a member of the National Honor Society and National Latin Honor Society; she was accepted as the first woman enrolled in the Thomas More College of Fordham University in her junior year of high school. She completed her freshman year (1964-65) then dropped out to have a family. She gave birth to three children with Thomas Jennings: Thomas John (1965); Leslie Kay (Boegel) (1967) and Charles Fox (1969). In 1978, she worked as the Administrator of the Nutrition and Hematology Research Laboratory working with Victor Herbert, MD, JD preparing medical and legal manuscripts and managing the laboratory. Dr. Herbert was one of the prolific scientific researchers at the time, having published over 400 peer-reviewed papers. During her tenure there, Joan had taken some adult ed photography classes and her black and white art photographs were accepted into the inaugural exhibit at the Bridge Gallery in White Plains, NY, showing with noted dance photographer Barbara Morgan. She started photographing weddings for friends and, through word of mouth recommendations, found herself photographing weddings and social events. She left her job at the lab and, with her husband Andrew Colman Betts, started Jennings and Betts Photography. Joan photographed many celebrities including taking the book jacket portrait of Erma Bombeck for her best-selling book "Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession." Steinway Piano was a client and she photographed the unveiling of the portrait of Vladamir Horowitz at Steinway Hall in NYC, meeting such luminaries as Wanda Toscanini Horowitz, Mike Wallace, Kitty Carlisle, Werner Klemperer and others. She was the "official" photographer for Dr. Richard Brown's New School for Social Research's class on Film and Filmmaking for two years, photographing Kirk Douglas among others. Other subjects included Placido Domingo, Robert Merrill, Jan Pierce, Beverly Sills, Jessye Norman, and others. Her career came to an end when she injured her left knee. In 1999, she returned to her childhood neighborhood on the Yonkers waterfront and joined what became the Yonkers Downtown/Waterfront Business Improvement District (BID) as their marketing manager. She coordinated free community activities including music concerts on the Yonkers Recreation Pier on the Hudson River. She held a film festival called "Really, really, really bad movies" that caught the attention of CNN and Joan was interviewed by Jean Moos. Joan was on the Board of the Community Development Council, the Friends of Philipse Manor Hall (a NY State museum of history and art; President 2000-2009) and the Yonkers Historical Society. Joan lost her husband Andrew to pancreatic cancer in 2008. In 2009, with Luis Perelman, she co-authored an Arcadia Press book "Images of America: Yonkers," utilizing her knowledge both of local history and photography to assemble historic photographs and maps of Yonkers. In 2012, she relocated to Tarpon Springs, Florida. She joined the International Rotary Club of Tarpon Springs, is a life member of the Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society, chairs the Board of Advisors for the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Modern Art, and is a member and former flotilla commander of the United States Coast Guard Auxiliary. Under her chairmanship of the Tarpon Springs Public Art Committee (PAC), she imagined and implemented a unique installation of solar-powered illuminated art boxes that created an outdoor art gallery along the famous Sponge Docks. Joan has four grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.