Fay Williams

She forgot about the four Wendy's.

Attorney Fay Williams telephoned a reporter who interviewed her the previous week. Williams explained that her Wendy's business partner chided her over the weekend for neglecting to mention their Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers franchises.

"I'm an entrepreneur, not a do-gooder," she said.

She also forgot to mention that she was on the board of directors for radio station WTLC until 1985 and is one of the founders of the Circle City Sisters Investment Club.

But, in the last analysis, it seems obvious that no list of her activities and achievements will adequately render the Fay Williams picture.

Her "ego boosting" wall, as she jokingly calls it, hung with diplomas and testimonials, faces the south window of her office. It looks out over her paper-strewn desk on the sixth floor of the Inland Building law offices she shares with five independent attorneys.

Outside under the unseasonably warm blue September sky, the midtown Indianapolis buildings tower above the bustling noon explosion of humanity on Market Street.

"For distinguished public service," says one plaque -- engraved with a likeness of Thomas Jefferson and Williams' name.

A lesson in the economy of words to describe this five-foot-tall dynamo who came to Indianapolis from Texas in 1955 and who has been actively involved in government, politics, charity, fund raising, law, minority issues, publishing and education.

For starters: She has been named the B'nai B'rith 1971 Woman of the Year, won the Bronze Woman Award in 1969, the Certificate of Community Achievement in 1971, the Mary McLeod Bethune Award in 1975, Model Cities Girls Club Community Service Award in 1975, YWCA Outstanding Community Service Award in 1975, Bicentennial Citizens Award in 1976 and the National Municipal League Distinguished Citizen Award in 1979.

An entrepreneur; not a do-gooder. Not active; involved.

On the Gulf

Starting up from Galveston, child Fay Helen sailed into awareness with three identities. She was black, Texan and American.

"I am a product of the segregated Texas school system," she said. "I learned tremendous survival skills. But I was always around people who cared for me and wanted the best for me."

Her father, Wilson Smith, came from a Texas family with Indian heritage as well as a black heritage. Her mother's...