Lisa Hurka Covington fought for emergency phones to be installed on the Bay Bridge, hoping someone intending to jump might instead call for help. She traveled to the Capitol in Washington, carrying quilts with pictures of men, women and children who took their own lives and calling for more money for suicide-prevention programs. She persuaded six Maryland school systems to print crisis hot line numbers on the back of student ID cards.
Propelled by personal tragedy - her 28-year-old sister shot herself dead in 1991 - Covington has become an insistent voice in public policy debates surrounding guns, mental health and, more than anything else, suicide education.
"I think she's a force of nature," said Rowland L. Savage, coordinator of guidance and counseling services for Baltimore County schools. "She's just the kind of person you read about in leadership books. She has vision, a strong sense of mission."
Now the Rodgers Forge woman has persuaded a band of Harley-Davidson riders to join her efforts in suicide prevention. Dozens of bikers are expected to wind through Harford and Baltimore counties this morning in a combination motorcycle rally and card game. The "Poker Run" is designed to raise money for SPEAK (Suicide Prevention Education Awareness for Kids), an organization Covington helped found five years ago.
"We just think what she's doing is great," said Betty Reber, an officer with the Ladies of Harley division of the Baltimore County Metropolitan Harley Owners Group. She said her club wants to help alert parents to be on guard for signs of suicidal thoughts in their children.
Covington, a 49-year-old with a grown son, helps with her husband's plumbing business. But she's found being an activist is more than a full-time job.
"People don't want to hear that word - suicide," she says. "It's been a battle."
After her sister's death, Covington began speaking out against gun violence, at one point serving as a spokeswoman for the Rev. Willie E. Ray's Baltimore Coalition to Stop the Killing. She frequently marched for stricter gun-control laws.
Gradually, though, she became more focused on mental health education. In 1999, she and three other women who met at Seasons, a local support group for people whose loved ones committed suicide, formed SPEAK. It now serves as the greater Baltimore affiliate of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
