Jenell Ross will receive Citizen Legion of Honor award

Ross is the president of Bob Ross Auto Group, a second-generation leader of the area’s 44-year business. She accepted that role in 1997, the club noted in an announcement on the award.

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Her father, the late Bob Ross, was one of the first minority auto dealers in the nation.

Ross has served as a member of the National Automobile Dealers Association; the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers; General Motors and Chrysler Minority Dealers Associations; she served as the 2013 chairwoman of the American International Automobile Dealers Association (AIADA), as the first African-American woman to hold that office.

Ross has served on numerous area boards including the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance; Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce; Dayton Development Coalition; Dayton/Montgomery County Convention & Visitors Bureau; Central State University Foundation Board and many others.

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Today, she serves the Cincinnati Branch of the Federal Reserve Board of Cleveland; the Miami Valley School Alumni Council; and the Minority Business Partnership of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce.

Jenell established the Norma J. Ross Youth Foundation in honor of her mother, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2010. “She has continued to volunteer, work and support education awareness of breast cancer and has been an ardent fundraiser for the American Cancer Society for many years,” the club said in its announcement.

Ross has also received the the Dayton Daily News’ Ten Top Women of Dayton award and has been recognized with the Better Business Bureau Torch Award; YWCA’s Woman of Influence Award; and 50 Most Influential Women awards; the Barbara Cox Automotive Woman of the Year; Urban League Pillar Award and many others honors.

Past recipients of the award include developer Bob Mills, U.S. District Judge Walter Rice, entrepreneurs Clay and MaryAnn Mathile, Oscar Boonshoft, Brother Raymond Fitz, and more than 60 others, going back to the award’s first presentation in 1951.

The Presidents Club of Dayton will recognize Ross at its annual luncheon starting at 10 a.m. October 4 at the Dayton Convention Center.

Sponsorships and tables for the event are available by contacting Marcia Bostick at (937) 226-8225 or emailing at mbostick@dacc.org.

The proceeds from this event go toward sustaining the scholarships at Sinclair Community College for active student volunteer leaders in our community.