BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) — All month long, CBS 42 has been recognizing remarkable women during Women’s History Month. It’s a chance to spotlight the women in our community who have truly made a difference.

We are excited to announce Arlinda Davis is our 2023 winner. She was one of four finalists.

“I’m honored, I’m excited but I’m also very humbled,” Davis said.

Davis is so humble that she’s more excited about how she will use this recognition to help students she has taught find their voices through her trauma-based learning in the classroom.

Her daughter, Charisse Williams, said she didn’t have the chance to be in her class like her siblings, but she said she is so thankful to be able to share her mom with the hundreds of children she has helped during her 25 years at Avondale Elementary School.

“She’s amazing, she does not take full credit for the things that she does,” Williams said. “I just learned to accept that because of the type of person that she was – so all of the people that are coming back and acknowledging her and thanking her I’m just grateful that they’re letting her know what an amazing woman she has been for them and the impact that she has been for them.”

Davis said she doesn’t want the other finalists: Sylvia Bennett-Stone, T.K. Thorne and Gloria Dennard to go unnoticed. She said they all inspired her to write a poem including them in her speech of thanks.

“I just started to think how remarkable women are and I thought about the word remarkable – how you do something over again and again, you leave a mark,” Davis said. “I thought about that and what they had done and that was my inspiration of the other women.”

Davis said the one thing she wants you to know is to tell anyone you love that you love them because you never know if they will still be here tomorrow. She will advance on later this year to be honored among all the remarkable women who were chosen by other Nexstar stations across the country.