Debbie Bowden, former chairwoman of Community Board 8’s Education committee, died on Jan. 29 from complications related to an illness. She was 75.

Ms. Bowden was a speech and language teacher for much of her life. She also served as the president of the PS 24 Parent’s Association, was a head counselor at the girls’ campus of Camp Delaware in Winsted, Conn. for nearly 30 years and was active in CB 8 from the 80s until the end of her life, chairing the Education committee until 2009.

“She was a leader. She was a teacher. She was a role model and she was an upstander — as opposed to a bystander —  a community activist,” Brett H. Bowden, her son, said. “She made a big difference in this place.”

Ms. Bowden was born in Brooklyn on Sept. 20, 1936. She lived in the Bronx, off of the Grand Concourse, until her second year of high school, enrolling in many public schools, including the High School of Music and Art. Later, her family moved to Yonkers, where she attended high school before attending a boarding school, Highland Manor, in West Long Branch, N.J.

After graduating from high school, Ms. Bowden began studying communications at New York University’s Bronx campus. While there, she interviewed Eleanor Roosevelt for class.

“It must have made a big impact on her because most of her life in Riverdale she was a leader, a community activist … In some ways she was an Eleanor-esque figure for the Riverdale community,” her son said.

Ms. Bowden received her master’s in education from NYU and married her husband, Don Bowden, on Valentine’s Day in 1960. The two moved to Riverdale, where Ms. Bowden began teaching speech and language at PS 24 and what was then known as JHS 141.

She took a break from teaching to raise her three sons, Brett, Bryan and Bradd Bowden, but returned to teaching in 1981. She instructed developmentally disabled students at PS 85 and PS 94.