Stories From the Heart II

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Liz Carpenter, our Friday-night keynote speaker, is a sixth generation Texan, a writer, and a journalist who reported on Presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to John F. Kennedy for 18 years. She traveled on LBJ's foreign missions as a press spokesman, and was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 at the time of the assassination. She drafted the 58 words that LBJ used on his return to Washington. In the White House, she was press secretary and staff director to First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, and also contributed to the speeches of the President particularly in the field of humor by creating a White House Humor Group. In 1969, when the Johnson Administration ended, she wrote "Ruffles and "Flourishes," her account of her White House experiences.

She was a vice president of Hill and Knowlton in Washington after leaving the White House. In 1971, she was one of the founders of the National Women's Political Caucus and co-chair of ERAmerica, traveling the country to push for passage of the Equal Rights Amendment. She was named by Governor Mark White to the Texas Women's Hall of Fame.

She joined Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson as the first woman executive assistant to the vice-president, and later became the first professional newswoman to be press secretary to a first lady for Lady Bird Johnson. She was appointed by President Gerald Ford to the International Women's Year Commission, by President Jimmy Carter to serve as Assistant Secretary of Education for Public Affairs, and by President Bill Clinton to serve on the White House Conference on Aging.

She returned to Texas in 1976, where she has written several books:

• Start With a Laugh (2000)
• Unplanned Parenthood (1994)
• Getting Better All the Time (1986)
• Ruffles and Flourishes (1970)

Wilhelmina Ruth Fitzgerald Delco, our Sunday lunch speaker, has devoted more than three decades to public service. In 1968, Delco was elected to the Austin Independent School District Board of Trustees, as the first African American elected to public office in Austin. Delco later served ten terms in the Texas Legislature and served on more than 20 different committees. In 1991, she became the first woman appointed Speaker Pro Tempore.

Throughout Delco's legislative career, she was appointed, served in leadership capacities, and received top honors from nearly every national education board in the country. Delco's consistent dedication to education gained her a national reputation in the field of higher education.

Delco retired from the Texas Legislature in 1995, but has remained an active force in higher education. She chairs the national boards of The United States Department of Education's National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity and the Compact for Faculty Diversity. Delco is also an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
(taken from http://www.twu.edu/library/twhf/tw-delco.htm)