Priscilla Belz Jenkins died peacefully at home under hospice care in the company of her loving husband at age 73 on Wednesday, December 25th, 2024, after a multi-year illness with interstitial pulmonary fibrosis. A resident of Salina, Kansas, she was born on July 7, 1951, in Baltimore’s Mercy Hospital, and spent her childhood in the Edmondson Village neighborhood. As a child she enjoyed Sunday trips with her father and siblings to Fort McHenry, Leakin Park/Gwynns Falls trails, Gettysburg, and the Friendship Airport observation deck where they loved to watch takeoffs and landings. A special treat was a trip to the Baltimore Zoo, which nurtured her love for animals and nature. She developed a lifelong love for gardening, entertaining, classical music and dogs, especially those she leaves now, Angie and Ricky.

Pris’ education began at St. Bernardine’s, and she graduated from Immaculate Conception Elementary School in Towson, Notre Dame Prep, and Goucher College, where her lifelong passion for art was refined. Her watercolor paintings became family treasures. She completed her education by earning a master’s degree in publication design from the University of Baltimore.

She went to work in the 1970s at the USF&G, one of the nation’s largest insurers. She broke glass ceilings there when she became the first female editor of the firm’s two publications: “The Helmsman,” which went to some 10,000 employees at the home office, and “The Bulletin,” which went to about 8,000 independent agents across the country. Additionally, she was the first woman to be promoted to head the USF&G’s advertising department. In 1979, she won the “Gold Quill” award, the highest given by the International Association of Business Communicators.

Perhaps her proudest moment at the USF&G was her role in approving a nest for Baltimore’s now iconic falcon family. On a rainy February day in 1978, Mary Clutter, the secretary for senior vice president Charles Foelber, came down from the 35th floor to Pris’ publications office on the 33rd floor and asked her to take a photo of a strange-looking bird screeching through the window at Mr. Foelber. Pris believed the bird was a peregrine falcon, but her photo description drew skepticism from her contact at the MD Audubon Society who informed her that those raptors were extinct east of the Mississippi. They put her in contact with Dr. Thomas Cade, who was leading a Cornell project to restore the falcon population following the DDT disaster which decimated the species. At that time Cade was working at the Aberdeen Proving Ground on his restoration project. He had placed a bird on remote Carroll Island in the Chesapeake Bay where they taught her to hunt for herself. When Pris described the bird in her picture to Cade on the phone (this was pre-email) he exclaimed, “Hot damn! That’s got to be Scarlett.” The bird had found the highest point in Baltimore facing the harbor. It remained for Pris to convince skeptical executives that they should allow Cade to prepare a proper nest (called a “scrape”) outside the 35th floor window. They agreed and today a 24-hour webcam follows Scarlett’s descendants courtesy of Explore.org. Cade used the data gathered at that window in his successful efforts with all kinds of endangered raptors including the bald eagle.

Pris expanded on her USF&G falcon experience by writing a children’s book published by Harper Collins for their popular education series. It was titled Falcons Nest on Skyscrapers. She also wrote one on robins for that series titled A Nest Full of Eggs and another on manatees titled A Safe Home for Manatees.

She left the USF&G and joined the National Aquarium in Baltimore after it opened in 1981. She was very proud of some 25 awards she received for her National Aquarium publications as head of the Public Relations and Publications department. She met and subsequently married Robert L. Jenkins, a top executive for Nick Brown, the aquarium’s third director. Pris and Bob were married at the Goucher College chapel on August 7, 1987.

Her husband’s career took the family to Marin County, California for a number of years until his appointment as director of the Salina Zoo in 2012 led them to settle in Salina, Kansas.

Priscilla is survived by her beloved husband of 37 years Robert L. Jenkins, two sons, Brandon M. Jenkins and John Nicholas Dieter (Mishel), both of San Francisco, one grandson Nicholas R. Dieter, two brothers, Eugene G. Belz of Clinton, IA and Paul H. Belz of Lutherville, MD, and three sisters, Mary Jane Belz of Lutherville, MD, Sr. Ann E. Belz IHM of Scranton, PA and Elaine Ackerman of Arlington Heights, IL.

Pris chose cremation and no service. Contributions to the American Lung Association would be appreciated.