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Show '-'Hope someone wins who really will benefit by the age date to come. Setting up our rules thus, tho we could pot know it then, was perhaps to prove the turning point in the life of a deeply troubled young man and our many hours work would more than pay for itself before our Program was complete. We had approximately six weeks time to prepare for November seventh, Award night, when we started. The time slipped by so swiftly! We had no way of knowing just how many entries we might have and we were told several times that we might have just a handful come to us. However, being optimists, we envisioned stacks and stacks of entries. : an I lea· r Ihem ;0001, emenn ul clu , recognition" was in our minds more than once dur ing the days that passed and we waited for deadline lecOI Ill, side We would meet for reading sessions; determined that each and every essay would be read by both Willie and myself. One, mailed to us from the local Youth home by a dedicated teacher there, made a little corner of our hearts break off and float away. The young man who had written it told how he "knew" what Freedom meant because he had lost his. He told how "he had come to know that being able to get up in the morning and going to bed at night was democracy;" that "having good manners was democracy." How "minding parents and going to school and learning and obeying the law of the land was freedom." In his own words he told that "it would be a good test for all of us Americans to lock yourself into a small room for 48 hours and to think over your problems. Then you would know what democracy means to you." He told, and again in his words, "Do you know what democracy means to you? I do! It means freedom and I didn't know what freedom meant until I was locked up and had to do everything that someone else wanted me to do. I had no choices. I just sat in a little room." To this he had added a poem. He is just sixteen, and the weight of the world upon young shoulders made us pause for long, long thoughts. There were many fine essays coming to us but this one always kept turning up toward the top winning ones in the minds of all the readers. Every day new proofs of Civic Participation made themselves known, and we hardly would .get the words out "would you" when the item we wanted was donated never charged for but gladly do We felt humble and grateful and so very, - - nated. very pleased. A fine stage was made for us by a businessman in Orem and he suggested he have men from his Com pany install it for us. All labor and material donat ed Civic Participation bless Wes Kofford. A close pal and leading florist in Pleasant Grove told us she would bring us our flowers for our - - stage. The National Guard men were truly wonderful see ing that the Arm0l1:', hich we felt to be the' per fect place for a Patriotic Program, was as shining as a star and all chairs set Joi..l L up and ready for us the even ing of our get-together. The Navy, bless them, sent us a real for sure missile; filled with sugar or sand of course; to be placed at the side of our stage and from which we could sus pend a little white star for each organization or group, with their name and thank you written on it. The stars were so many that they all but hid our missile! Later, when we counted, we had over fifty two stars! As we raced from project to project, and the even ing of our big event came ever closer, we checked and rechecked details. Lynn Petersen, Willie's sister, and a past President had given me an immediate "yes" when I called and asked if she would serve as another right hand and hostess for us. Her help proved invaluable as the days went by and then deadline time came and passed and almost breathlessly I raced to the phone and called Willie after having picked up our entries. We had over three hundred essays and one school mentioned they had sent only their best so no tell ing how many more really had been entered! We really began burning the candle. We read, initial ed, reread, called all of our BPW members together for reading sessions, had them initial the ones they liked, and eliminated and eliminated. Up until the very last we found ourselves with ap proximately thirty-seven exceptional writings. Talk about delicious dilemmas! The number finally came down to twelve and no matter which way we judged we still came up with twelve. The idea seemed to hit all three of us at the same time then; we would hon or more than we had at first planned and give some special little rolled certificates tied with golden tas sels. We chose the ones with the most favorable remarks written on them by our judges for the original num ber of winners but found that there were six rather than five that kept coming up, so, Willie' gave us a new Flag Kit she had just purchased and this gave us six Flag Kits rather than five; for we did not feel we could buy another Flag Kit without consulting our membership and there was no time for this. As it turned out, and this an example of Civic Participa tion 'from our own Club members; checks began ar riving to help defray the cost of our awards. It is general that each month our meetings include a din ner and so, with no dinner meeting in November, our blessed members gave their dinner money for Flags. This last session had taken place on Friday evening and Saturday and Sunday was spent calling the win ner's parents, giving them the good news and .invit ing them to come to the Armory one hour. pnor to the ceremony time so that our wonderful fnend ad a fine teacher Marcia Parks, could go over each wm ner's essay with him, as we planned on having each read his composition to the assemblage and we felt the young people would feel more assured after be ing coached by Marcia. |
