Maudra Baker, age 13, of Columbia, Tenn., for her question:

WHO WAS MARY McLEOD BETHUNE?

Honored recently by the United States Postal Service was Mary McLeod Bethune. Her likeness appears on a new 22 cent postage stamp. An important black educator, she devoted her life to the improvement of opportunities for members of her race.

In 1904, Bethune opened a school for black girls in Daytona Beach, Fla. The school merged with a boys' school in 1923 to form a college now called Bethune Cookman College. Bethune served as its president until 1942.

Presidents Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry Truman appointed Bethune to various government posts. From 1935 to 1944, she served as Roosevelt's Special Advisor on minority Affairs.

Bethune also served as director of the Division of Negro Affairs of the National Youth Administration from 1936 to 1944. When she took this office, she became the first black woman to head a federal agency.

Bethune was born in Mayesville, S.C. in 1876. In 1935, she received the Spingarn medal for her work in education and also founded the National Council of Negro Women. She died in 1955 at the age of 80.