Edna Lorraine Drever Pickens 1944-2018

Edna Lorraine Drever Pickens of Clarkesville, TN and formerly of Dorchester, MA and Ripley, WV died peacefully on December 13, 2018.  She was born on October 3, 1944 in Boston MA.  She was the fourth born of six children of Kerstin (Johnson) Drever and Peter G. Drever Sr.  Joseph Pickens, Jr. her husband of 36 years passed away in 2017.  She is survived by her son Malcolm J. Pickens of Clarkesville, TN.  She is also survived by two brothers: Peter G. Drever, Jr. and his wife Julie, John D. Drever and his wife Susan, and two sisters: Janice C. Conlin and her husband Thomas and Annette O. Francis and her partner, Warren Poole.  Her brother Thomas Malcolm Drever died in 2016.  She also leaves behind 7 nieces and 5 nephews.

Edna graduated from Jeremiah E. Burke High School in Boston.  After high school, Edna continued to live and work in Boston as a laboratory technician at both Children’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital where she met her husband Joe.  Joe had been stationed in Boston in the Coast Guard and had recently retired from the Coast Guard.  In 1974, Joe, not a happy city dweller, convinced Edna to move with him and their son to West Virginia, his boyhood home.  To Edna’s family’s amazement, she thrived there as a stay at home mother who had a huge vegetable garden that she harvested and canned.  They also had a menagerie of animals: dogs, cats and even a horse.  

At some point, as Malcolm became more independent, she decided to work outside of the home as an insurance advisor.  She earned her certification as a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU), and as an Accredited Adviser in Insurance (AAI).  She was a member of International Association of Insurance Professionals (IAIP) and the International Professional Insurance Women (IPIW) since 1987.  She was the West Virginia Council Director for (IPIW) for two consecutive terms, 2007-2009 and served on the planning committees for two Regional Conferences held in 1997 and 2004 for women from West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and North Carolina.  In her career, Edna won four out of the six of her local association (Charleston Assoc. of Insurance Women) awards: The Presidents Honorary Award in 1993, The Insurance Professional of the Year Award in 2001, the Millie Henderson Award for community service in 1997 and the Blanche M. Berry Award for Education in 2001.  She completed an IPIW course, “Communicate with Confidence” that teaches formal and impromptu public speaking.  After she retired, she taught several insurance courses such as Associates in General Insurance and the Accredited Adviser in Insurance.  Both courses are made up of multiple classes that take nine weeks to complete.

Edna was also a member of the Jackson County Chamber of Commerce and the Ripley Rotary Club.  When she retired from the insurance industry, she was the Executive Director for Main Street Ripley.  Its mission is to provide the leadership to enhance the economic vitality of the historic downtown business community and identify available financial resources to support that effort.  Her husband Joe became ill in 2013, so she resigned from this position to care for him but served as a very valued member of the board of directors for Main Street Ripley until she moved away from Ripley.  In that capacity she participated in the management of the historic Alpine Theatre and oversaw many civic activities.