Southern Health Association

2009 Southern Health Association Outstanding Legislator Award

This year the award was presented to Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter. Gilda Cobb-Hunter has been a South Carolina State Representative since 1992. Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter has dedicated her life to helping people and standing up for what is right with limited fear. She has been an advocate for social change, at the grass roots level and in leadership and mentoring. Through the years, Representative Cobb-Hunter's longstanding commitment to community service is reflected in her active participation on numerous boards and commissions.

Following are a few bills sponsored by Representative Cobb-Hunter:

A concurrent resolution to express the sense of the general assembly for the need to eliminate the health disparities among the citizens of South Carolina and for the state of South Carolina to support studies, policies, and practices dedicated to the elimination of these health disparities and to the reduction of barriers to adequate health care.
A bill to require a person who sells tobacco products including, but not limited to, cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, and cigarette papers shall keep these tobacco products behind a counter so as to be out of view from a customer or patron.
A law to create breast cancer awareness license tags.
A bill to require a student who participates on a school sponsored athletic team to be administered an electrocardiogram test during the student's pre-participation physical and to require the doctor who administers the test to clear the student before he is eligible to participate.
Orangeburg County has one of the highest concentrations of people with kidney disease in the state. Representative Cobb-Hunter created a bill to develop a chronic kidney disease task force for developing a plan to educate the public and health care professionals about early screening, diagnosis, and treatment.
The National Kidney Foundation of South Carolina named Representative Cobb-Hunter its Legislator of the Year for her part in passing stronger resolutions in favor of battling kidney disease.
Through her leadership a $750 million bond initiative was passed to build new schools; a State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIPS) to provide health coverage to thousands of South Carolina's neediest children was established; and the Lake Marion Water Agency was developed and funded.

She has worked on the national, regional, and state levels on a variety of progressive issues aimed at making communities a better place for working families to live. She is an innovative and dynamic leader with a proven record of championing new ideas and producing positive results for the people she is honored to represent. She is well known to her community and constituents and continues to demonstrate leadership beyond belief.