I emailed the following to the Senior Luncheon Committee members, and also to the pastor of our church, Jennifer Yocum (now giving a three-part sermon series on what marrage means to her as an openly lesbian minister/person), the moderator (president) of our congregation, Ken Prickett, as secretary, Elena Parker, and our church program coordinator, Audrey Ouellette. I am cc this to Dian too. I took a spreadsheet class from her at Oasis yesterday. She also stayed 1/2 after class and helped me get some data from a spreadsheet to a data base for mailing labels. Much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Dale Feik

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Betty Roberts, first woman Oregon Supreme Court judge and former Oregon legislator, will be our featured speaker at our Senior Luncheon , Tue, April 27. Betty Roberts has a web page that lists her upcoming events. She has already listed her speaking engagement at FGUCC. I would hope that we could disseminate that web page to interested people – PU, other churches, others?, members of our congregation who are not seniors but who may want to attend the lecture at 12:30. At any rate following is her web address. Once you get to the home page then click on the FGUCC link, the words describing her coming to FGUCC.

http://bettyroberts.net/

Note: Betty Roberts evolved into a very liberal feminist ‘the belief that women are inherently equal to men’ has been a lifetime lodestone for Roberts. She writes frankly about her own path toward extending her personal liberal principles of equality to incorporate sexual orientation; she eventually performed Oregon’s first same-sex marriages in Multnomah County,” quoted from her web page.

Another quote form her web page, “After moving on to the Senate in 1968, she fought for unrestricted access to abortion (ultimately contributing to the passage of a more limited legalization of abortion) and was instrumental in getting the Senate to adopt a bill barring racial and sex-based discrimination. She worked relentlessly on behalf of education and helped to steer Oregon’s innovative bottle-deposit bill…”

Her story is very compelling. I have read her book, With Grit and By Grace. If you would want to borrow it as background information for your upcoming marriage sermons, Jennifer, I will loan it to you.

Best regards,

Dale F.

I just started reading your book. I am on the Wayne Morse Historical Park Corporation Board (sounds fancy, but it’s a small group) At 37, I might be their youngest member. I see that you spoke at the Morse Center at the law school last month.

I noticed that you mentioned Dr. Johnson at Eastern. I’m assuming that’s Lee Johnson. Lee is someone I wish I would have know better. Later in life, he married my Grandad’s cousin, Betty Jo Schott (Johnson). My Dad attended Eastern not long after you, and Lee was one of his favorites, and I’ve heard that from other Eastern Alum. I attended Easter in the early 90s before transferring to OSU, and I enjoyed it. My Great Aunt Margaret Flynn of The Dalles, native of Condon (I grew up in Fossil and my Dad’s family settled in Gilliam County in the late 1800’s) was in The First class at Eastern with Lee. You might have known Margaret. She was very active in The Democratic Party and I think was on the State Central Committee.

I hope to meet you at one of your upcoming events. Corvallis would be a good p0alce for a book signing. I was active in The Benton County Democrats, and it is, as you likely know, an active liberal community.

Best Wishes,

Grant Schott

I look forward to attending the book signing of Justice Roberts. She was my modern problems teacher at David Douglas High School and helped to shape my sense of political
and social justice. As a high school student I was working part time at a local ice cream store. After being there 13 days straight, I received my first salary. The figures were written in pencil on a slip of paper and I was paid in cash. I calculated the amount and realized that it amounted to 5Justice Roberts regarding this unfairness 5 cents per hour at a time of minimum wage being set at $1.25 per hour. I spoke with Mrs. Roberts, my modern problems teacher as she seemed to have a grasp on issues related to students, perhaps more than any other teacher with whom I had studied.

What I was caught in the middle of as a 16 year old was clearly an unfair labor practice. I organized the students who worked at the shop and discussed this with them, brainstorming as how to best address it. Some were not concerned, it was after all… a job… Some listened and I was quickly relieved of my job… (What I didn’t know at the time was that one of the students who attended “my meeting” happened to be the son of the owners… )

It was my understanding that in the next legislative session Betty Roberts went on to introduce legislation that required any working student to receive monitoring/support from their school of record in order to assure fair labor practices.

I was deeply moved by Betty Roberts the teacher and the politician. She set the tone early on for me as a role model striving to do the right thing, to speak up, and to take positive action.