Gail Evans - July 3rd

Annie Outlaw - July 9th

Sandra Gagle - July 10th

Margaret McPherson - July 16th

Joan Sutton - July 16th

Luanne Johnson - July 23rd

Pamela Bradshaw - July 31st

FLAG DAY

(excerpt taken from newsletter)

No one knows with absolute certainty who designed the first stars and stripes or who made it. Congressman Francis Hopkinson seems most likely to have designed it, and few historians believe that Betsy Ross, a Philadelphia seamstress, made the first one.

Until the Executive Order of June 24, 1912, neither the order of the stars nor the proportions of the flag was prescribed. Consequently, flags dating before this period sometimes show unusual arrangements of the stars and odd proportions, these features being left to the discretion of the flag maker. In general, however, straight rows of stars and proportions similar to those later adopted officially were used. The principal acts affecting the flag of the United States are the following:

         ·  On June 14, 1777, in order to establish an official flag for the new nation, the Continental Congress passed the first Flag Act: “Resolved, That the flag of the United States be made of thirteen stripes, alternate red and white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new Constellation.”

         ·  Act of January 13, 1794 – provided for 15 stripes and 15 stars after May 1795.

         ·  Act of April 4, 1818 – provided for 13 stripes and one star for each state, to be added to 
the flag on the 4th of July following the admission of each new state, signed by President 
Monroe.

         ·  Executive Order of President Taft dated June 24, 1912 – established proportions of the 
flag and provided for arrangement of the stars in six horizontal rows of eight each, a 
single point of each star to be upward.

         ·  Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated January 3, 1959 – provided for the 
arrangement of the stars in seven rows of seven stars each, staggered horizontally and 
vertically.

         ·  Executive Order of President Eisenhower dated August 21, 1959 – provided for the 
arrangement of the stars in nine rows of stars staggered horizontally and eleven rows of stars staggered vertically.

SUSAN CORLISS-BLAND

Women’s Issue.... First Place in State winner Susan Corliss-Bland in the category of Career Issues Essay. Following is a copy of her winning essay:

I like the definition of career from Wikipedia: A career is an individual’s journey through learning, work and other aspects of life. When I was growing up, my mother had to work to support the family. She never had a career or a plan. She went from one hourly job to another n order to provide for her family. She started putting money aside for me when I started school, and it was always presumed that I would attend college and have a management job earning lots of money. That was her dream. Through a lot of hard work, I did graduate with a BS in Marketing. I was unable to find a job and continued taking classes, eventually completing courses in Accounting and Computer Science. I worked as a secretary, a model, a direct sales associate, a store clerk, a clerk in a CPA office and finally got a job for a trucking company. Working my way thru college taught me many things, like how to hold my temper when I was cussed out for things beyond my control. And how to not give up when I was wrongly accused and how to persevere to get the education and work experience that would finally give me job security. To graciously respond to male co-workers who refused to honor my abilities just because I was female.

One of the things my mother stressed to me at the end of her life was to not work, but to be there for my own kids, it was one of her lasting regrets. She said someone else had told her when I got my first tooth and someone else told her when I took my first steps. I vividly remember being the only one that didn’t have a mother in the audience for school programs that were held during the day. At the time she died raising my own children seemed far away. But time moves swiftly and soon I found we were expecting our first child, just months after we had adopted a little boy. I had finally worked my way up to MIS Director for the trucking company. I worked 50-60 hours a week and loved what I did. After a decade of breaking barriers to prove myself capable in a male dominated industry, how could I give that up?

I had a “career” and returned to work at the end of the normal maternity leave like so many people told me I needed to do. Juggling long work hours and children who needed their mother left me frazzled and drained. Two years later as I was trying to decide how to handle the work load and the impending arrival of another child I found myself in the hospital for one month and then was replaced at my job. Suddenly life was very different and I had to forge a new normal. I found that everything I had learned along the journey had prepared me for what I was facing. In time I started my own company, serving clients thru computer training and accounting services. So often I meet people that are intimidated by the computer, and I feel a big part of my success is instilling not only knowledge but confidence in those I teach.

For me, my career has been so much more than just 40-50 hours spent in someone else’s company. It has been growing and learning beside my clients and watching their businesses thrive and occasionally grieving with them when their business doesn’t make it. It has been stretching to new challenges and assuming leadership positions in volunteer organizations. It has been a time to show my children that hard work is never something to fear, but proper respect is something to be earned.

I had one daughter that when she was small wanted to be ‘just’ a mom. My first response was quick and came from my cultural conditioning. “Oh no, you want to have a career”. Yet thru my friendships in NSDAR I have met women who have been quite fulfilled yet never worked for a company. They gave their best to their family and those organizations they chose to work with. I went back to my daughter and told her that if she chose to be a stay at home mom, I thought that was one of the most awesome choices she could make – shaping the lives of the next generation and giving them a strong foundation.

My mother grew up in a time when women were first entering the job market in large numbers, and were mostly offered dead end jobs with no security. Women were really supposed to be at home. I entered the job market at a time when women were supposed to be there and shirk the outdated idea that we were to stay at home; the National Organization of Women told us so. My daughters enter adulthood with so many more choices. I have been blessed to be surrounded by diverse friends so they have seen many patterns of women’s roles. And isn’t that the ideal career path? To learn, work and grow in service to others; whether it is your family, your community, or a corporation. The future is wide open for them to explore and that is the best career choice possible for women. Through the hard work of women breaking down barriers for over a hundred years, they have the luxury of freedom of choice. Their future is bright indeed.