Last time we talked about my involvement at the junior high.
Right.
Well, our family reached the point where I had a daughter in both the junior and senior high.
So naturally I had to get involved at the senior high too.
Both at the same time?
Yeah. But wait. There’s more.
What?
They wanted me to take the position of Vice President of the PTSA at the senior high. While I was still Treasurer at the junior high. So I figured, okay, I can handle that.
And?
And so I took it. And what happens? The senior-high PTSA President finds she can no longer serve, so — guess what — they elevate me to the position of President.
So then I’m both Treasurer at the junior high and President at the senior high. For one year.
You could do it?
Well, I survived. And I guess I did okay.
As President I attended meetings of the county-wide PTA council.
We would exchange ideas. What we each were doing. What works and what doesn’t.
Also I attended meetings of the county school board/
Especially when one of the subjects involved our school. Such as renovations being planned.
Did you have your own senior-high programs?
Oh sure.
For instance, one meeting was in the school auditorium.
The school drama club had just put on the show The Music Man. So I arranged to get the four young men who played the barbershop quartet. They sang their song “Lida Rose.”
I’ve heard that.
It went over big.
Another meeting was because our school was participating in a student-exchange program.
That’s where we send students to study in other countries and they send their students over to study here.
What was your meeting like?
Our student was from Sri Lanka. That’s just off the coast of India.
That country had been ruled by various ethnic groups over the centuries. Including the British, before the country won its independence.
Our guest, a young woman, described life there. And then one of our members asked, Didn’t your country used to be called Ceylon?
And?
And she answered, “It has always been Sri Lanka to us. It’s the British who called it Ceylon.”
You know what? I wrote an article about the meeting for the Catonsville Times. And my lead was that very quote from the student.