June Bacon Bercey Essay

By:Lo. Ty. Meteorologist June-Bacon Bercey, born June Esther Griffin, is a native of Wichita, Kansas. She was the only child of James Griffin, an attorney, and Cherrie MacSalles, a music teacher. Being married twice, once in 1956 to Walker Bacon (doctor) and in 1968 to John Bercey (businessman), is how she got the combination of her last name. Her parents were an influence of her interest in science at a young age and her interest in science stayed with her in high school. She spent a brief time attending a segregated high school in Florida, where African Americans weren’t encouraged to pursue an interest in math and science subjects. Bercey returned to Kansas and attended a racially mixed school where those subjects were taught to everyone enthusiastically. It was her physics teacher who
noticed Bercey’s interest in science that encouraged her to ponder a profession in meteorology. She then attended the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), earning a Bachelors of Science in Mathematics and Meteorology in 1954 and a Masters of Science in the same degree in 1995, thus making history for African Americans in becoming the first African American female professional meteorologist in the U.S.
Bacon-Bercey then worked as a meteorologist for the National Meteorological Center located in Washington, D.C.
from 1956 to 1962 where she prepared weather forecasting reports. She then left NMC to work as a consultant for the Sperry Rand Corporation at the Atomic Energy Commission, monitoring the effects of nuclear explosions in the atmosphere. In 1970 she began working for NBC in Buffalo, New York as a correspondent on scientific news. Bercey predicted that there would be a heat wave and when her prediction became true, she began working as a meteorologist at NBC, thus becoming the first black women meteorologist to be on television. For her achievement, Bercey became the first African American and the first women to earn the American Meteorological Society’s Seal of Approval for excellence in television weather casting. Only six women earned this award by 2002. She left NBC in 1975 and then worked for the National Weather Service in Washington, D.C. as a meteorologist and broadcaster. In 1979, she worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) as a public affairs specialist and an educator about environmental and meteorological issues and the retired in
1989.
After retiring, June Bacon-Bercey began working as a substitute teacher on the San Mateo public school system in 1990. In 1997, she was involved in creating a summer program for high school and college students to teach meteorology at black colleges to encourage the students to pursue their careers in the field. In 1975, Bercey helped found the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Board on Women and Minorities to increase the number of women and minorities in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences. Using her own money, she also established a scholarship fund for women who want to work in the atmospheric science field. I truly admire June Bacon-Bercey’s actions. When someone tells me that I can’t achieve in doing something, I prove them wrong and do it anyway and I think Bercey has that mindset as well. When someone tells me that I can’t achieve in doing something, I prove them wrong and do it anyway and I think Bercey has that mindset as well. Many tired to deter her from pursuing her dreams not only because she was African American, but because she was a female as well. I feel as though when most people become successful and wealthy, they don’t come back to help out their community. However, Bercey came back from retirement to teach and to create programs for black colleges to give minorities the opportunity and encouragement to study meteorology. June Bacon-Bercey’s drive and achievements have paved the way for the next generation to make history in a profession that is not common for African American women and minorities.