NORFOLK, Va. — Legendary WTKR News 3 anchor Barbara Ciara received a prestigious honor Friday night during the Project Nana Awards Gala at the Murray Center in Norfolk. News 3 anchor Jessica Larché emceed the event and helped present the award to Ciara.
The nonprofit organization honored Ciara with the Gwen Ifill Seasoned Women's Champion Award, recognizing her legacy of groundbreaking journalism in Hampton Roads, where she spent more than 40 years anchoring and reporting at all three local television stations. Ciara ended her career at WTKR News 3 two years ago after 23 years on the anchor desk here.
Watch: An ode to Barbara Ciara & her career
The award is named after Gwen Ifill, a groundbreaking journalist who made a career covering U.S. politics, moderating presidential debates and hosting several programs for PBS, including Washington Week and PBS NewsHour. Ifill was just 61 when she passed away from endometrial cancer in 2016.
"It reminds me of how a person of consequence can make a difference for so many people in the world," Ifill's brother, Dr. Roberto Ifill, said during a Project Nana event last year before revealing his sister's cancer was stage 4 by the time she was diagnosed.
Project Nana's mission is to educate post-menopausal women about their cancer risk. The organization was founded by Vanessa Hill after losing her grandmother to the same cancer that took Ifill.
Hill says her "Nana" was also diagnosed at stage 4, as are many women who are postmenopausal. Hill calls on women to continue seeing a gynecologist regularly, even after menopause, and to report postmenopausal bleeding.
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