{"id":20957,"date":"2025-04-17T00:33:40","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T04:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/?post_type=wfsu-news&#038;p=20957"},"modified":"2025-04-17T00:41:09","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T04:41:09","slug":"former-tallahassee-senator-loranne-ausley-wins-this-years-chiles-advocacy-award","status":"publish","type":"wfsu-news","link":"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wfsu-news\/former-tallahassee-senator-loranne-ausley-wins-this-years-chiles-advocacy-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Tallahassee Senator Loranne Ausley wins this year&#8217;s Chiles Advocacy Award"},"content":{"rendered":"<!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('audio');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-20957-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/s390\/audio\/2025\/04\/loranneausley0415ss.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/s390\/audio\/2025\/04\/loranneausley0415ss.mp3\">https:\/\/cpa.ds.npr.org\/s390\/audio\/2025\/04\/loranneausley0415ss.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>It&#8217;s Children&#8217;s Week at the Florida Capitol, and former Tallahassee Senator Loranne Ausley is the winner of this year&#8217;s Chiles Advocacy Award. The honor comes as Ausley makes an extraordinary recovery from a bad accident.<\/p>\n<p>Today, the former Democratic lawmaker says she&#8217;s counting her blessings.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m doing incredible. I&#8217;m so lucky to be here, frankly,&#8221; she says. &#8220;I was in a serious bike accident in early November, which was less than six months ago, and I was in a coma for almost a month, and in the hospital &#8212; between Atlanta and Panama City &#8212; for almost four months.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ausley was participating in an Ironman Triathlon in Bay County when she had the accident. She says she was in the best shape of her life &#8212; which helped her recover. She even participated in the Springtime Tallahassee run and last weekend&#8217;s 5K.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s taking me longer than I would like, but\u2026I got back to walking, got back to running slowly, you know, getting it all back,&#8221; she says.<\/p>\n<p>Ausley is being honored for decades of child advocacy, especially in early childhood education and disability issues. She says she&#8217;s proud that the nonprofit Whole Child Leon, which she co-founded in 2004, helped the community understand the importance of investing in early childhood. She also believes it helped pave the way for the Children&#8217;s Services Council of Leon County.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m proud of the work I did on disability issues as the mother of a child with blindness,&#8221; she says. &#8220;And in between, lots of Children and Parents Days, children&#8217;s cabinet &#8212; some little things and some big things. And I think: Making sure we&#8217;re always putting our children and families first. That&#8217;s what I&#8217;ve done in my life, and I want to keep doing that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, Ausley is the incoming board chair for the Institute for Child Success, a 30-state organization that works to improve outcomes for children. <\/p>\n<div class=\"fullattribution\">Copyright 2025 WFSU<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[],"tags":[1136,1135],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Former Tallahassee Senator Loranne Ausley wins this year&#039;s Chiles Advocacy Award - WFSU Local Routes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wfsu.org\/local-routes\/wfsu-news\/former-tallahassee-senator-loranne-ausley-wins-this-years-chiles-advocacy-award\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Tallahassee Senator Loranne Ausley wins this year&#039;s Chiles Advocacy Award - 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