Lu Pollard Obituary

Mar 18, 1917 - June 10, 2006 Lu Lu Pollard passed away Saturday at 11:06 p.m. MST. She died peacefully in her sleep at Aspen Living Center in Colorado Springs. Lu Lu was born in Colorado Springs. She graduated from Palmer High (then, Colorado Springs High School) and attended Prairie View College in Texas where she became the first female clerk in the College Treasurer's Office, eventually becoming Assistant Treasurer at Howard University. In 1941, she graduated with honors from Langston University in Oklahoma and received additional training in accounting and financial management at the New York Business Academy, and the US Army's finance and accounting center at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana. She married Rufus Johnson, a professor at Langston University, in 1939. They divorced in 1943. In 1951, she married Leonard M. Pollard and they remained together until Leonard's death in March 2000. During WWII she was employed as head of International purchasing and accounting in Washington DC for the USSR. After the war she returned to Colorado Springs and was hired as a civilian payroll clerk at Ft. Carson. In late 1961, after a series of supervisory positions, she became chief of the Accounting Division with seven branches and a total of 55 civilian and military personnel under her supervision. She left the position in May 1962 and moved with her husband to California. She started a new career as a trainee in personnel management in the General Services Administration, Region 9 in San Francisco. In 1965, she was appointed Supervisory Personnel Staffing Specialist, responsible for hiring, promotion and separation of all GSA employees in several western states, Hawaii, and the Philippines. In December 1973, she was transferred to Washington DC to become the first full-time Equal Opportunity Officer for the Military Traffic Command. She retired in 1976. She and Leonard operated a retirement and financial counseling service in Northern California for a few years then returned to Colorado Springs. In 1980 They were instrumental in establishing the Negro Historical Association of Colorado Springs (NHACS), organized to address the paucity of information about Black history and culture in the Pikes Peak region. Over the next 25 years she edited and published the organization's monthly newsletter and tended to its financial business. The results of her efforts in association with NHACS on behalf of the local Black community are on permanent exhibit at the Starsmore Center of the Pioneers Museum. She has received countless awards, certificates and other expressions of gratitude for their involvement in the community and have been featured numerous times on local television and the pages of this newspaper. The City of Colorado Springs has dedicated the Lu Lu Pollard Park in the Briargate District in her honor. She was preceded in death by her husband Leonard and all of her eleven brothers and sisters. She is survived by three generations of nieces and nephews across the country. Her body is to be cremated and no service has been arranged in accordance with her wishes.