July 26 Ms Wheelchair America Pageant

Another day of interviewing and this morning I waited in the conference room before my interview. I chatted with Ms North Carolina Jennie Martin she is so sweet and her accent is so southern. She is married to a wonderful man you can see the flame in both her and her husband's eyes. She is Miss Social Butterfly she knows every one's story and is whole heartily interested in every contestant and hanging on their every word and is spinal cord injury.

Ms North Carolina
I wheel to the other side of the room and observe my husband enticed in a conversation with Ms New York. As I approach I realize that Ms New York is a BIG SPORTS FAN I can identify between a basketball and a football team but Ms New York has knowledge of the players and the positions that they play. WOW! How cool is that! She even has a wheelchair designed as the stripes of the America flag. I am impressed! She is a great advocate and represents people with disabilities by sitting on several boards in her community and her state.
Ms New York
It is time to get ready for the "The ADA and You" workshop I sit with Ms Kentucky Sherry Hixembaugh during this workshop Sherry makes light of not having an accessible room and what the team of attorneys think is accessible. The team of attorneys offer to fly to our home states to assist in making our states ADA compliance at no cost to the titleholders. This was very soothing to know someone cares so much to make changes all over the United States and at no cost to the titleholders. I personally added to the conversation that I was able to make a difference without suing the community college and the city that I resided in at the time. I believe you can make a change in numbers and with grace and only file a lawsuit as last resort. One of the attorneys replied later that he had never seen a city comply without suing. I was impress with myself if I had accomplished this and he had not ever seen it done. I did mention that he may want to walk over and glance at my scrapbook with all the articles from the newspaper on the work I had done in the community.
Ms Kentucky
It is time for the Comedy Night this evening was a lot of fun most of the young ladies were dressed up as their favorite comedian and some contestants preformed skits on stage with their husband and care providers. Ms Illinois Alana Wallace and her husband did a skit from "I LOVE LUCY" and they were absolutely fabulous.

Ms Illinois

Part of comedian night was for the contestants to tell a joke on stage and my joke was about the conversations of a married couple. I thought this was appropriate since I was married and I would never say these statements to my husband (he picked out the jokes). This night I was next to Ms Washington Sigrid Laegreid and she just captured my heart. She is a full time employee at my favorite store which is Nordstrom and works in their corporate office. She gave out really nice pins of the space needle from her home state. She acquired a spinal cord injury from a drunk driver and is advocating to make a change in her state. During the joke presentation Ms Washington's phone was ringing ever so lightly and I would look her way and she would be smiling and pretend not to notice and she did this with grace and a straight face. We both laughed afterward and from then on we became great friends. This night was a great evening we all danced after comedy night.

Ms Washington