1999 – Pawling, New York
Elizabeth Peale Allen is a member of the Board of Trustees of Guideposts, A Church Corporation. She is C.E.O. of Positive Communications, Inc. And she is chairman of the board of the Positive Thinking Foundation. Mrs. Allen has been a member of the Board of Trustees of Trinity-Pawling School for 20 years and currently is Vice President of the Board and chairman of the major gifts committee for a recent capital campaign. In September 1985, Mrs. Allen was made a Director of Pawling Savings Bank and Progressive Bank, Inc., and in January 1994 she was elected Chairman of the Board of Pawling Savings Bank. Mrs. Allen serves on the Board of Trustees of the Akin Hall Association of Pawling, is a member of the Quaker Hill Burial Ground Association and a Trustee of Christ Church on Quaker Hill. She is married to John Milton Allen, formerly a vice-president of Reader’s Digest, and is the mother of three children. Mrs. Allen was born in Olean, New York, on July 22, 1942, a daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Norman Vincent Peale. She was raised in New York City, where she attended Friends Seminary and later was graduated from Mt. Holyoke College. Mr. and Mrs. Allen moved to Pawling in 1965 and have been active in civic and school affairs. Mrs. Allen’s late father was instrumental in the founding of Northwood University, giving special advice and support to Co-founder Arthur E. Turner in the earliest years. Her mother, Ruth Peale, was named a Distinguished Woman in 1981 making this second generation award particularly heartwarming to the University’s friends.