Background on Girls State
EDITOR: Reply to Eden Winniford’s letter about Girls State and the American Legion (“Girls deserve same opportunities” Jan. 25):
I appreciate your positive comments about the American Legion. I also appreciate the passion you have for promoting equality of the sexes, however you are missing some information.
Had you come to me, the Children and Youth Chairman of the American Legion for at least the past 20 years, I would have told you how and why we have more boys going to Boys State than we have girls going to Girls State.
Originally one boy for each high school was the limit imposed on us by the state and the activity’s space available. Then we were allowed two after much campaigning by Jack Stuart, a very active Legion member. After some posts either disbanded or were unable to pay to send a boy to Boys State, we asked to send more. We do not do other Legion youth activities such as oratorical, or a baseball team, or a rifle club, so one of our contributions to our youth is to send more to Boys State.
We provide the funds for the Girls State representative to go because we have no auxiliary. The Healdsburg American Legion Auxiliary Unit 111 graciously agreed to select the girl to go and do all the work required to make it happen. They don’t have to do so but have helped us out for about 20 years now as we want to sent a girl to this wonderful learning event.
Girls State, like Boys State, is a program where for a week the student goes to a university where they are housed and fed and taught our form of government through role play of every job from coroner, to mayor, to governor. There are judges and campaign managers and news persons. It takes a lot of volunteer hours and money to keep programs like these running.
As to slighting girls, our scholarships were originally only for boys until the women in our post reminded the members that since women are vets also we needed to open them up to the girls.
Since we did this nearly all our scholarships have been awarded to the girls. We even tried having a vocational school scholarship hoping boys would apply but no one did so we reverted to general scholarships.
I am sorry you felt your were worth less than the boys, but there are constraints the auxiliary is working with. They are a separate entity from the American Legion with there own charter from Congress even though they are associated with individual posts.
Posts do not have any say into what happens with the auxiliary. The auxiliary is a group of very dedicated women who have a father or grandfather eligible for American Legion membership. We here in Cloverdale would love to have an auxiliary but it takes a minimum of 10 women to start one.
If anyone is interested please contact Donna Cambra 894-7575 and I can give you the information about it.
Eden, I hope you enjoy your Girls State experience and that you find yourself in a fun role and learn lots about our form of government in this hands-on experience.
Donna Cambra, Children and Youth Chairman of William Russell Ledford Post #293 of Cloverdale
Girls State not a Cloverdale program
EDITOR: This letter is in reply to Eden Winniford’s letter regarding the California American Legion Auxiliary Girls State program. (“Girls deserve same opportunities” Jan. 25):
I am sorry Miss Winniford has taken to the newspaper to express her concerns about being worth less, and only half as valuable as a boy. If she had contacted me I could have answered her questions without her airing her grievances in a public forum.
The American Legion Auxiliary was first established and chartered by Congress in 1920. We are the world’s largest women’s service organization and our eligibility is through either direct family relationships to service members who have served in the Armed Forces of the United States during recognized wartime periods.
For the last 17 years the Healdsburg Auxiliary Unit has used one of their quotas to send a Cloverdale student to ALA Girls State. Currently we send one girl each from Healdsburg, Windsor, Geyserville and Cloverdale high schools.
The Girls State program is held each year at Claremont McKenna College in Ontario, California. They can only accommodate a maximum of 560 girls plus staff. Due to limitations multiple girls from individual high schools is not possible.
The Cloverdale American Legion, out of concern for their community agreed to fund one girl from Cloverdale High School to attend, even though this is not a legion program.
The American Legion Auxiliary is the sole sponsor of the Girls State program, and when Cloverdale’s unit disbanded Healdsburg Unit 111 agreed to take on the responsibility of interviewing and selecting the girls from Cloverdale.
Eden Is an intelligent young lady and I wish her the best at Girls State. She will have an experience of a lifetime.
If you have any questions or are interested in joining the American Legion Auxiliary, you can contact me through my email address, mt**********@gm***.com
Melanie Taylor, Healdsburg American Legion Auxiliary Unit 111, Girls State Chairman
Get the flu shot
EDITOR: A recent New England Journal of Medicine study showed a dramatic increase in the incidence of heart attacks within one week of the diagnosis of influenza (flu), as much as six times more like. That is another reason to get the flu shot; admittedly it is not overly protective this year, but certainly better than nothing, and it may protect you from the flu and a heart attack.
Dave Anderson MD
Geyserville
Show that we care
EDITOR: The words from Tom Homan, Deputy Director of ICE and US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the recent actions of local ICE give cause for great concern on the part of all law abiding citizens here in California and Sonoma County in particular. These seem to be more revenge-based than based on citizen security. In an effort to not let this continue unchecked, the Legal Observer team concept has been developed.
If ICE activity is noticed, any time of day or night, a simple call to the hotline – 707-800-4544 will bring into action a team of trained observers to document and ensure the activity is within the scope of the law and the policies of our local government.
You are not required to be further involved. For more info see www.northbayop.org/rapidresponse. Let us show all the members of our communities that we care.
Bruce Campbell
Sebastopol
