Longtime educator, civic leader Porter dies at 72

Friday, May 15, 1998 | 10:17 a.m.

Norma Webb Porter, an active therapist and longtime educator in the Clark County School District, died Tuesday. She was 72.

Known as "Dr. Mom," to her friends, family and members of the community, Porter attracted people wherever she went, said her daughter Maxine Porter.

Porter served as a coordinator and teacher of special education for the district. She was appointed to the Nevada Martin Luther Holiday Commission and she won the Clark County Educational Mother of the Year Award.

"She was a well-rounded, well-versed person who was able to relate to anyone," her daughter said.

She also served on executive boards of Operation Independence, on the board of the NAACP, and Miss American Black Teenage Pageants Inc.

After graduating from Toledo (Ohio) Libby High School in 1943, she pursued a nursing career where she moved from licensed practical nurse, through the social services department, to the administrative staff of the Medical College of Ohio at Toledo.

For a young black woman, who was told by her high school teachers that she wasn't college material, Porter went on to receive an associates degree in social work, a bachelor's degree in education and social service, a master's degree in instructional curriculum and a doctorate in clinical psychology from Trinity Theological Seminar.

"It was during World War II, not long after the Depression and not a time for black female graduates to hold a vision of higher education," her daughter said referring to the teachers' remarks.

After retiring at the age of 55, Porter moved to Nevada from Toledo in 1980 to join her daughter Maxine.

In the summer of 1985 Porter did a cross-cultural study relating to the fields of health and education, which included gathering data from trips she took to the Women's Conference in Nairobi, Kenya, and four cities in the Soviet Union.

Aside from her professional responsibilities, Porter counseled clients from "Help Them Walk Again," chaired Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority scholarship committee, served on the American Cancer Society Speakers Bureau, was involved in Project Lead -- Links Erase Drug and Alcohol Abuse -- and youth art involvement programs.

Porter, through her Special Quiet Sunday School for the Handicapped program, also spent Sunday mornings with disabled children who were unable to leave home.

She came from a family of 10 children, which included three sets of twins -- Porter was the older half of the youngest set.

She is the daughter of the late Harry and Ida Jamison Webb, the widow of Samuel H. Porter and survived by her daughter Ida Maxine Porter.

Visitation is at 2 p.m. Sunday at Harrison-Ross Mortuary, 2017 N. Las Vegas Blvd. The funeral service is at 1 p.m. Tuesday at Pentecostal Temple, 1117 "F" Street at Madison.