Former DeKalb County school board member Donna Edler died Tuesday of complications of the cancer that she had battled since her run for office three years ago, her husband Darryl Edler told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Edler was a strong-willed and outspoken member of the board that governs Georgia’s third-largest school district. She was known for standing her ground, and she wasn’t shy about discussing the cancer that she thought she’d beat with a mastectomy several years ago.
Earlier this year, she publicly disclosed that the cancer was spreading again. It didn’t temper her resolve to fight, though.
Edler was among the half dozen school board members removed by Gov. Nathan Deal. She died before hearing the outcome of a Georgia Supreme Court case over the constitutionality of the governor’s action. A decision, that might restore the removed members to office, is expected next month.
After unsuccessfully petitioning the governor for reinstatement, Edler filed another lawsuit in Fulton County Superior Court, challenging her removal, in a case separate from the one before the high court. Edler, 52, was awaiting her day in the Fulton courthouse on Nov. 19, Darryl Edler said.
“She still believes there was an injustice done her,” he said.
Edler had three children, two grown and one in high school. She attended the University of Kansas on a track and field scholarship, and displayed the same kind of endurance in seeking public office.
She was drawn to politics by Barack Obama’s run for the presidency, joining his campaign and eventually becoming a paid member of his ground team. Darryl Edler said she was so successful at door-to-door campaigning that she was given a “golden clipboard” award.
She deployed that same enthusiasm when she ran for school board in 2010, unseating an incumbent with handmade yard signs. Even then, she was battling cancer. “She would take four days recovering from the chemo and then she would be in the street campaigning,” her husband said.
Her pastor, Bishop Quincy Carswell, was impressed with her energy, and rallied the support of his congregation and of other pastors. “She was a renegade,” he said. “We hadn’t seen anything like her in DeKalb County. She had a great concern for people.”
A memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday at Carswell’s The Covenant Church, 1700 Corey Blvd., Decatur.
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