“I was happy to come to Aurora,” said Shannon-Banister, who studied piano, violin and voice at Xavier University of Louisiana before receiving a degree in humanities from the University of Wyoming. She’s lived on East Amherst Drive in the southeast corner of the city ever since. Shannon-Banister first came to Aurora in the late 1970s with her two young children after her husband, Gordie, got a local job with the Department of Labor. 31, capping a nearly four-decade career with the city of Aurora, first as a planner, later as an unaffected puppeteer of peace. Those are just a few of the mile makers that stick out after a some 20-year career as head of the city’s community relations division - a career that ended with the most recent close of the calendar. Day Marade - an event which Shannon-Banister has long helped organize.
Then there was the time she unintentionally rode the city hall elevator with notorious neo-Nazi Shawn Slater as he was on his way to pick up a permit to protest the annual Martin Luther King Jr. She hasn’t taken out the beaded tendrils since. riots in the early 1990s, she helped stem tempers after a group of local teenagers ransacked the Buckingham Square Mall across the street from the old city headquarters.Ī few years later, she responded to racial insults targeted at her fellow black coworkers in city hall by braiding her hair in a display of solidarity. Poston/The SentinelĪnd in her some 36 years working in various roles at Aurora city hall, she’s heard them all - usually while quietly quelling some instance of racial bias or discrimination.įollowing the L.A. Barbara Shannon Bannister recently retired from her 36 year career with the City of Aurora, most recently as the head of the Community Relations Division. Honorary doctor, manager of the Aurora Community Relations Division, and “Bay Essay Bay” - the Spanish pronunciation of the nickname she uses to introduce herself on her purring city voicemail message - are just a few of her seemingly umpteen titles. B arbara Shannon-Banister is a woman of many monikers.
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