Sheilah Mackinnon Drover grew up in Corner Brook, Newfoundland, and left after high school to attend Memorial University. She studied briefly in Spain and Sweden before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Education from MUN. As a student she received the John Lewis Paton Honour Society Award, which is conferred by the student union based on academic standing and “outstanding contribution to the university and its students.” In later years she studied at St. Xavier University in Nova Scotia and earned a Master of Adult Education. During her career as an educator she served as teacher, principal, and, at the post-secondary level, as president and CEO of the Central Newfoundland Community College. Most of her secondary-school teaching years were spent in Springdale, although she also taught in Corner Brook, Peterview, Botwood, and Ghana, West Africa. Outside her career she served on various boards and committees, including NewTel Enterprises/Communications; Provincial Advisory Council on the Status of Women; Peters Foundation—Jess’s Place, Housing for Women Recovering from Addictions; Women for Successful Employment (WISE); MATCH, a Canadian NGO working to improve lives of women in the south; provincial president and life member of the Women’s Institute; Offshore Petroleum Impact Committee (OPIC); and the countless other community committees women are wont to serve on as they raise their children. Married in 1964 to John Drover of Twillingate, they have four children and five grandchildren.