Mary Carol Flake de Flores (born September 25, 1950) is the former

First Lady First lady is an unofficial title usually used for the wife, and occasionally used for the daughter or other female relative, of a non-monarchical A monarchy is a form of government in which a person, the monarch, is head of state fo ...

of the Republic of

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. The republic of Honduras is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Oce ...

, wife of

Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé (born 10 March 1950) is a Honduran politician and businessman who served as the President of Honduras from 1998 to 2002. A member of the Liberal Party, Flores was previously the President of the National Congre ...

, who was President from 1998 to 2002.

Biography

Mary Carol Flake was born in Memphis, Tennessee, the eldest of seven children, and was raised in Cincinnati, Ohio. She earned a bachelor's degree in textiles and marketing from Louisiana State University, where she met Carlos Roberto Flores Facussé. They married in 1973 and have two children:

Mary Elizabeth Flores Mary Elizabeth "Lizzy" Flores Flake (born December 6, 1973, in Tegucigalpa) is a journalist, lawyer, politician and diplomat, the daughter of the former Honduran president Carlos Flores Facussé. Her mother is Mary Flake de Flores, who is Americ ...

, since 2010 the

Permanent Representative of Honduras to the United Nations The Permanent Representative of Honduras to the United Nations ( es, Representante Permanente de Honduras ante las Naciones Unidas) is the Chief of Mission of the delegation of Honduras, and highest permanent representative of the Government of ...

, and Carlos David Flores Flake. Her husband became involved in politics in the 1970s and was elected president in the 1997 general election, serving from January 1998 to January 2002.

As First Lady and after

As First Lady, Mary Flake de Flores was Honorary President of the Honduran Institute of Childhood and Family, participated in the Ninth Conference of Spouses of Heads of State and Government of the Americas, and participated in the summit of first ladies of Central America and the

Inter-American Development Bank The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB or IADB) is an international financial institution headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States of America, and serving as the largest source of development financing for Latin America and the Caribb ...

, to promote support for rural women. In 1998 she founded PROFUTURO, a project to build an interactive educational center and a children's museum of infancy. She is also the founder and honorary president of the Fundacion Hondura para el Niño con Cáncer (Honduran Foundation for Children with Cancer) and a member of the Board of Directors of the Honduran Institute of Interamerican Culture. She was Honorary President of the 1999 Special Olympics and keynote speaker at the 1999 National Congress for Women in Mexico City. As founder and president of the non-profit Fundación María, she has organized and funded a new pediatric specialty hospital in Tegucigalpa, which began construction in 2000.

Honors

* Nominated by the International Commission of Women for 1997

International Woman of the Year International is an adjective (also used as a noun) meaning "between nations". International may also refer to: Music Albums * ''International'' (Kevin Michael album), 2011 * ''International'' (New Order album), 2002 * ''International'' (The T ...

* Medal of Merit of the Honduran Federation of Women Fellowship, for her humanitarian work during and after Hurricane Mitch, which severely damaged Honduras in October 1998. * Caribbean Latin American Action Star of Caribbean Award, 1999 * 2000 Humanitarian Award of the

Sabin Vaccine Institute Sabin Vaccine Institute (Sabin), located in Washington, D.C., is a nonprofit organization promoting global vaccine development, availability, and use. Through its work, Sabin hopes to reduce human suffering by preventing the spread of vaccine-pre ...

References

Sources

* "Mary Flake de Flores (Biografía)", Office of the First Lady of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, 2000 {{DEFAULTSORT:Flake de Flores, Mary Politicians from Memphis, Tennessee 1950 births First ladies and gentlemen of Honduras Living people Louisiana State University alumni American emigrants to Honduras