Republican Women awards scholarships

The Bandera County Republican Women met on May 5 to award scholarships to local seniors and to hear state president Kit Whitehill speak.

Seniors Emma Carlson and Rien Mazurek were presented with certificates representing their scholarships of $1,000 each by Texas Federation of Republican Women President Kit Whitehill. The club had raised money for the scholarships through bake sales and a spaghetti dinner conducted during the previous year.

Mazurek plans to attend Texas Tech University, and Carlson will attend Brigham Young University in Provo.

After presenting the scholarships, Whitehill spoke about the opportunities available through the state organization. Whitehill was only recently elected to her position as state president in January and has been traveling around the state visiting local clubs in the last four months.

The Texas Federation Republican Women has 12,000 members and 165 clubs. It is the largest group of politically active Republican Women in the nation.

Whitehill remarked the organization’s purpose was to encourage Republican women to run for office and to help elect Republicans. She likened the current political climate to a war between good and evil for the country. She noted that 16 million dollars were flowing into the state to increase the registration of Democrats. She also commented “the Democrats of today are not the same as the Democrats of yesterday.”

Whitehill remarked “local clubs range from 10 members to 300 members. It doesn’t matter the size of the club. What matters is their heart, their passion for conservative values and electing Republicans which are our main objectives. We are working for our candidates. Also getting involved in the community is important too. Every club has its own personality and I love meeting the members. Every club has its own project. It’s so exciting to me to get to see everything and get to meet everybody.”

Membership chairman Melanie Burns reported the club had 35 paid members and 10 paid associate members (men). She said that the goal for this year is to recruit 15 more women to join the local club. She encouraged the group to “Tell A Friend, Be A Friend, and Bring A Friend.”

The Spaghetti Dinner to benefit the coming year’s scholarships was announced for Thursday, September 22. Tickets will be $10 and will be distributed to the members at the July 7 meeting.

The club voted to continue meeting throughout the summer months, but they did vote to close the Republican Headquarters for the months of June and July.

The next meeting of the Bandera County Republican Women will be on June 2.