Phyllis Kernick

Born in Penn Hills, Pennsylvania on December 14, 1924, Kernick graduated from Penn Hills High School and the two-year business program of the Robert Morris School of Business (now Robert Morris University).[6]

She then pursued further studies at Duquesne University, Point Park College (now Point Park University), and the University of Pittsburgh's Institute of Local Government.[7]

She and her husband, William Kernick, had six children between 1947 and 1960.[8]

Employed as a secretary with the international law firm of Reed Smith, she was elected as auditor for the Allegheny County Hospital Development Authority in 1964,[9] and was then elected as treasurer of Penn Hills Township, serving in that capacity from 1969 to 1976. During her early career, she had also served as a member of the Allegheny Regional Planning Council and the Governor's Justice Commission.[10]

Elected as a Democrat to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 1974 term, she was subsequently reelected in 1976 and 1978.[11]

Following her resignation from the Pennsylvania House on January 7, 1980, she was elected as mayor of Penn Hills Township. She served in that capacity from 1980 to 1984. Roughly a decade later, she was elected to the Penn Hills Township Council, and served on that leadership body from 1994 to 1998.[12]

Kernick died from congestive heart failure at the age of eighty-four on January 21, 2009 in Penn Hills Township, and was interred at the Plum Creek Cemetery in Plum, Pennsylvania.[13][14]