School officials unveiled a plaque on Friday morning dedicating the School 16 media center to Italian-American trailblazer Mary Augusto who founded “The Italian Voice” newspaper and was the first woman to run for mayor in the Silk City.

“My mother believed in trying to do good for people,” said Augusto’s daughter Cesairna Augusto Earl. When Augusto learned the Board of Education was planning to close down School 16 in 1946-7 because the building was too expensive to heat in the winter, she sprang to action gathering 200 People’s Park section residents to protest.