Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Ooooo... now I'm excited!

Tonight I had the pleasure of hearing former Oregon Supreme Court Justice Betty Roberts read from her book, With Grit and By Grace, her memoir of life as a trailblazing woman politician. Betty was the first female Supreme Court Justice AND is our keynote speaker at this year's Safety In Numbers. Big ups to Ms. Linda for asking her to be there!

Betty is amazing. Give her a name of an Oregon politician from the last fifty years, and I bet she can tell you what years s/he served. She packed the room at Annie Bloom's, and the woman sitting next to me filled me in that a lot of the audience was made up of Betty's neighbors. And she was funny! She told a great story about being asked by a reporter during her race for the US Senate in 1974 how she found time to be a politician and get the grocery shopping done, and she replied, "I go when the dog and cat are out of food." She also stated that Hillary Clinton has to stay in the race for the women of the United States and Barack Obama has started a movement that all of us need to continue.

But my favorite story of the night was when she showed the audience a picture of the glass ceiling that sits above the Oregon Supreme Court in Salem. She said, "Now, I didn't break that ceiling, but the year after I was appointed, it started leaking."

I can't wait to hear more on September 12th at the Crystal Ballroom! This year's Safety In Numbers is going to be AMAZING.

1 comment:

Linda said...

Yay!!!

I am so excited to have her speak to us this year! How profound to have a woman with such strength, humor and keen memory to inspire us.

This year's event is going to be fabulous!