By: Karen Rice Hester
Hello Mother, Hello Father, Greetings from your, long lost Daughter… and thus began one of our favorite traveling songs. It’s hard to believe it has been 35 years since the Eager Beavers of 1989 celebrated A Rainbow of Promise and Victory sessions at California’s 59th Grand Assembly Sessions in Fresno. With 79 grand officers, we entered the Grand Assembly room wearing our amazing light blue crystal sheer organza dresses that had ruffled skirts and sleeves for days. We were two by two, as our Grand Worthy Advisor, Julie Gerbrandt (Rey) and Acting Supreme Deputy, Mrs. Anna Lind entered with Noah in his Ark.
These sessions were the culmination of an incredible year of traveling, making gnawsome new friendships and creating bonds to last a lifetime. Together with Mr. Gene Gregg, our State Rainbow Dad and Mrs. Mary Schenck, our Mother Advisor for Grand Assembly, as Beavers, we traveled from Alturas to Chula Vista and every point in between for Official Visits and Receptions. The summer of “free-fun” continued as we traversed the state in large caravans. We had sleepovers, trips to water parks, beaches, and slept in a hayloft. We used the sign of distress to communicate from car to car back in an age before cell phones. And made plenty of phone calls home asking for mom and dad to send just a few more dollars so we could drive a few more miles. We over packed our cars, ate too much and slept too little. And had the best time of our lives.
Thousands of car washes, bake sales, selling fireworks and endless hours of serving dinners came together to allow us to present over $104,000 to the Blind Children’s Learning Center in Orange County. Their mission is to prepare children with visual impairments for a life of independence through early intervention, education, and family support. For over 55 years, this organization, originally founded by six blind adults, has sought the key to helping visually impaired children from the very start. They include much needed follow-though during a child’s school years, building confidence and self-esteem, mainstreaming early and teaching skills needed throughout their lives. Today this organization is still going strong and providing support to children throughout southern California.
Keeping true to our promises, the lessons we learned as young girls became the inspiration and help us continue to thrive as we go through our adult lives. We have many of our sisters working with Rainbow assemblies both in California and in other jurisdictions. We have gone on to be teachers, lawyers, police officers, project managers, hair stylists, medical assistants, fundraisers and historical archivists. Many have become wives and mothers. And a few even profess to having developed a lifelong love for quilting (thanks to having to embroider all our own squares back in the day). Favorite memories from our grand year are as true today as they were 35 years ago, and I’m sure ones you will hear repeated with this years’ Red Panda’s. Most talk of walking onto the grand assembly floor for the first time, stepping up to the microphone to give their representative report in front of a packed room of friends and family, and meeting our new Grandies. And for many of us, those memories are as fresh today as they were in that moment. We are so proud to have served the state of California and represented our jurisdictions across the country. As we share our 35th anniversary with the Red Panda’s, we can’t help but to look back over that time of big sleeves and even bigger hair, gas was under $ 0.90 a gallon and cell phones weren’t a thing. There was no social media, and you had to take a picture and wait until you got around to developing the film to see if your picture came out ok. While times have changed, the memories created in Rainbow stay true. We are so thrilled to be here with everyone celebrating. And if you want to talk to a real-life person who survived traveling without our parents and without a cell phone or GPS, come sit down and have a chat. We’d love to tell you the stories.
