Olivia Lazor recalls her years in office

Lazor battled cancer
during her tenure as
county commissioner.

By MARY GRZEBIENIAK

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

MERCER, Pa. — When Mercer County Commissioner Olivia Lazor turns out the light in her office at her courthouse office for the last time this week, it will be the end of her years as a public official. But she won’t be resting on her laurels.

The 72-year-old political veteran will launch a new career next week as a volunteer in a national anti-poverty initiative with a pilot program here, the latest step in a career devoted to helping others.

“I’m a helper,” she said, noting that when she visited her father’s ancestral village in Italy this year, she found she was named after St. Olivia, the village’s patron as well as patron saint of helpers.

And indeed, her career has been about making life better for others.

She got into politics in 1977 by helping her township neighbors with a burdensome sewer project. She was appointed, then elected twice as supervisor for South Pymatuning Township, later drafted as a write-in to be township auditor for four years before serving 15 years as commissioner.

Her road has not been easy to travel.

In the past 10 years, she struggled to maintain her duties while facing two serious bouts with cancer and the death of her husband from the disease.

But Lazor, known for being a tough adversary and a tireless worker, leaves a legacy that will not soon be matched. One of only two Mercer County commissioners in the last 100 years to serve four consecutive terms, she also is only the second to be elected president of the County Commissioners Association of Pennsylvania.

A South Pymatuning Township native, she graduated in 1953 from Sharpsville High School. But even before that, she had to take on odd jobs at 14 to help support her family after her father was injured in an accident.

Years later she and husband, Edward, faced a heartbreaking challenge when doctors told them that their daughter, Teresa, had a progressive, incurable eye disease which was destroying her vision.

Since educational opportunities were sparse for a vision-impaired child in those days, Lazor decided to become a teacher and help educate her daughter. She taught for 15 years.

When Teresa graduated as salutatorian from Sharpsville High School and went to Grove City College to pursue a degree in social work, taped versions of textbooks were not available. Lazor quit teaching school and for the next four years worked the equivalent of a full-time job, beginning at 8 a.m. every day to read every one of her daughter’s textbooks into an indexed tape recorder and tape her class notes.

“People said to me it was such a sacrifice,” Lazor recalled. “But it prepared me for what I [later] did in social services here in the county, including what I encountered at Children & Youth, Drug and Alcohol, Mental Health and Retardation.”

Later, she and her husband were building a house when a sewer project was announced for South Pymatuning Township. They joined some others to find out why the sewer was so expensive and why it extended into sparsely populated areas.

Eventually, her group found grant money to lower the cost for residents and downsized the project, which helped local farmers. It launched her into politics.

A supervisor resigned in the controversy and Lazor was chosen by common pleas court to fill the spot. She later was elected to a four- and a six-year term of her own.

She then left township politics to take a job in North Carolina doing construction finance management for her brother. During this time, although she did not run for the position, she was elected township auditor on a write-in vote.

In June 1991, her husband persuaded her to apply for an empty ballot position for county commissioner due to the illness of Harold Bell, who had won the primary. Lazor won the ballot spot and went on to win three more consecutive elections.

Her husband, Lazor said, “was my workhorse.” She said he was working full time 55 miles away and would come home to hang signs and work on the campaign. “In our marriage, we were always teammates,” she recalled.

She entered the political arena at a time when there were few women there, though Lazor believes women are uniquely equipped for public office. “I truly believe women are more detail-oriented. Men see a solution and want to move forward and not wait for the what-ifs,” she said with a chuckle. “That drives some men crazy, especially some county commissioners I have known.”

But, she added, in the commissioners’ position, one must research and build a position, sticking with your own convictions, but still be able to compromise.

Lazor said among her most difficult days in office were those she spent fighting her own cancer and carrying on her duties during her husband’s illness and after his death.

Her cancer was discovered in 1998 and metastasized to her liver in 2000. She underwent two major operations, returning to work as soon as she could. “I came to work sick as a dog and nobody knew it,” she said.

Then, while she was still undergoing chemotherapy, her husband had cardiac problems and then was diagnosed with advanced cancer early in 2003. At this point, Lazor said she decided not to run for re-election. But it was only at his insistence that she did.

“He said he would get up out of his bed and make me file” for re-election, she recalls. She coped “with the grace of God,” she said.

She didn’t have the heart to do much campaigning and won that year by her smallest margin. Shortly after her re-election, her husband died in December 2003.

Lazor recovered and said she has been cancer-free for seven years. She counts among her greatest achievements in office the multimillion- dollar renovation of the county courthouse, establishment of family centers to help combat juvenile delinquency by helping children when they are young, as well as a neighborhood family-based program for youth in juvenile probation — a program that has greatly reduced recidivism.

She thanked her daughter Teresa, who lives in New Jersey, and her son Ed, of Canfield, her grandchildren, and all her supporters for their help during the years. “I hope I’ve been the type of public servant they wanted,” she said.