The Zonta Club of Brisbane is mourning the loss of Mary Magee, a long time club member and Zonta International President.

Mary joined Zonta in December 1973 at the invitation of Leneen Forde, also a former former International President and former Governor of Queensland.

Five years later Mary was elected as club president and then went on to serve as Area Director, chairman of various district committees, Lieutenant Governor, and Governor.

She was elected to the Zonta International Board in 1994 and, for the next eight years, served in successive positions in the hierarchy until she was elected as International President in 2000, the third Australian to be elected to that position – and the second from the Zonta Club of Brisbane (the first being Leneen who brought her into the club!).

Throughout those first 30 years in Zonta, Mary drove the establishment of new clubs with her trademark passion and exuberance. She was directly involved in establishing 20 clubs in Australia and a further 20 elsewhere in the Zonta world.  Born in 1936, she was a true trailblazer, the first woman to own a pharmacy in the Brisbane CBD (she first needed a male to act as guarantor for a loan and then paid it off within a year).

Mary went on to be named Telstra Business Woman of the Year in 1998 and in 1999, she was appointed to the Queensland Premier’s Council for Women, advising on women’s health and violence against women and children. Mary was a brilliant Zontian and indeed a formidable role model who will be forever missed!