Bowie delegate
hit with stroke at bar party
hosted by Comptroller
Hospitalized Maryland Delegate Plans to Return to Convention
By CHRISTOPHER WEAVER
Capital News Service
DENVER - Roxanne Taylor, the Bowie insurance executive
who had a stroke Tuesday in Denver, said she won't let anything
stop her from doing her duty as a Democratic delegate.
During the day Tuesday, Taylor told fellow delegates who
visited her in the hospital that "nothing could keep her away"
from Barack Obama's speech on Thursday, said Quincy Gamble, the
executive director of the Maryland Democratic Party.
Taylor had a stroke just after midnight at a convention
welcoming party and was hospitalized in critical condition at
Denver Medical Center.
Taylor, who has been identified as either 51 or 52, told
the Capital News Service in an interview last week that she's
been an Obama devotee since his appearance at the last
Democratic Convention in 2004, where the candidate told the
story of "a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that
America has a place for him, too."
"When I heard Barack speak in 2004, I said, he's going
to be president one day," Taylor recalled. "I said I'd do
whatever I could to see him get into office." Now, rebounding
from the stroke she suffered very early Tuesday morning, her
plans haven't changed.
Taylor celebrated the first day of the convention with
other delegates on Monday evening at Dixon's Downtown Grill for
a private party hosted by Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot.
As the room emptied around midnight, Taylor sat at a
table with a small group of fellow delegates and supporters.
They decided to head for the buses that were waiting outside to
shuttle delegates back to their hotel.
Karren Pope-Onwukwe, a Prince George's County attorney
and delegate, was the first to notice that something was amiss
when the group reached the sidewalk. "I looked around and she
wasn't there. She was still sitting at the table," Pope-Onwukwe
said.
She returned to Taylor to find her complaining about a
contact lens and acting strangely, and within minutes, her mouth
began to droop, Pope-Onwukwe said. They called for paramedics.
The streets of Denver are packed with heavily-armed
police officers and other emergency workers to help control the
convention crowds. While protesters call it a police state, this
state of high alert may have helped save Taylor's life, Pope-Onwukwe
said.
The first paramedics arrived within minutes of the call
on bicycles, and an on-call physician was not far behind. A few
minutes later, Taylor was on her way to Denver Medical Center.
Her condition was upgraded from critical, but stable, to
fair by Tuesday morning.
Pope-Onwukwe, who campaigned for Obama with Taylor in
the Maryland primaries, said, "What I've known of Roxanne from
the year we've been working together is that she's a fighter.
She doesn't give up."
When she left the hospital at 3 a.m. Tuesday, the last
thing Pope-Onwukwe remembered hearing Taylor say was, "make sure
you get my credentials." Taylor, only hours after her stroke,
was already making plans for the upcoming convention days.
Taylor joined the campaign in its exploratory phase,
enlisting in Prince's George's County for Obama with only a
handful of fellow supporters.
"He's about change, and I liked the fact that he wasn't
taking lobbyist's money," Taylor said, in a July interview.
"That was key for me."
She joked about her career as an executive in an
industry notorious for the power of its lobbying arm, the
insurance business.
"I respect my profession, and it's done well by me,"
said Taylor, the owner of the Church Insurance Partnership
Agency in Largo. "But I don't like the direction the country is
going in, and I put that before an industry."
Michael Cryor, the chairman of the Maryland Democratic
Party, told delegates Tuesday that Taylor would be receiving a
call from Obama to offer his wishes for her recovery.
Capital News Service staff writer Laurie White contributed to
this report.
