LeROY - Albertine Scray thinks about Africa every day, not just when it's Black History Month each February. It's where Scray, 37, spent the first 27 years of her life and where her mother and several siblings still live.

It's also home to more than 900 million people, many of whom live with poverty, disease and war.

Scray, a Cameroon native who lives in LeRoy, hopes her recent election to a prominent post with the Chicago-based United African Organization can help her native land.

She's been elected secretary general of the organization. The volunteer post will require her to travel monthly to Chicago, where she'll represent the organization in various meetings and public policy forums.

She hopes the UAO can help improve Africa by calling attention to regional warfare, the AIDS epidemic and substandard education systems.

"She's a very kind-hearted and forward-looking woman who really wants to make a difference in the lives of people," said Alie Kabba, UAO's executive director.

Scray, who speaks English, French, some Spanish and three African languages, has been back to Africa twice and plans to return again this year.

One of her trips to Africa was to reenact her U.S. marriage in a tribal tradition. She met her husband, Eugene Scray, in Chicago, where she arrived a decade ago for an American education.

The couple moved to LeRoy when Eugene Scray took a job with State Farm Insurance Cos. in Bloomington.

Their friendship began in traffic.

"I was going to a baby shower, was late and I cut him off," she said. The two chatted during that chance encounter.

That's how a woman who lived in a convent for four years and was in training to be a nun started on a path that led her to be a mother and stepmother to five children.

African tribal customs required Scray to offer goats, pigs, cows, bananas, tomatoes, wine and salt for his bride's hand.

"She's beautiful, brilliant and strong. I've got a real partner on a lot of levels," said Eugene Scray, who said the interracial couple has found a home in LeRoy.

While comfortable in the small town near Bloomington, Scray wants to keep her hand in African culture. Her hair-braiding business in Normal helps with this as do the decorative African masks and dolls in the family's home.

The dolls, including one showing an African woman carrying water on her head, tell stories of life in Africa.

One thing her house does not have is a dog. Her reasoning: "I think of all the dying in Africa and realize that here (in the U.S.) animals have more."

She hopes the UAO can help change that.

About half of the nations in Africa have representatives in the UAO, and Scray hopes all will eventually be represented. "The first weakness of Africa is that we are divided," she said.

While the organization meets in Chicago - a destination for many African immigrants - she hopes there eventually will be meetings in Africa.

"We will try to develop a presence in African countries this year," Kabba said.