My Favorite Safety in Numbers Moment

For me, it was Betty Roberts. I heard her on OPB's Think Out Loud while I was driving to work last spring and was floored by all of the legislation that she had worked to pass. Restraining orders, rape shield laws, autonomy for married and divorced women, domestic violence shelters.... I found a contact to her through the Oregon Women Lawyers Foundation, a funder of PWCL for many years and made it my mission to have her speak to us at Safety in Numbers, Then I read her book and learned so much about Oregon politics, about women, about living through multiple decades of change in America.
My favorite moment was when she took the stage and was given a standing ovation. She deserves it. Thank you Betty and thank you to everyone who attended, volunteered, contributed and made it happen!
You can buy Betty's book here. It's a great read.

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.