Sunday, March 1, 2015
Contributed by Pam Brady
In the early 1970s, the City of Troy was starting to grow dramatically and several of the women who moved into town were thinking about establishing a local league of women voters. Sarah Torrace, with much League experience, became our provisional president. The first organizational meeting was March 1st 1972. Our present member Andrea Arends has a notation in her calendar that the first board meeting on October 23, 1972.
The LWV TA was chartered in 1974. Joanne Hubbard was the first president. Several years later, Joanne went on to be the first woman elected to Troy City Council. Another early member, Sue Watson, became the first woman on the Troy School Board. In the late 70’s the Troy League enjoyed a large membership. We hosted the LWV Michigan convention at the Renaissance Center. During this time most of the female elected officials and members of boards were members.
In the late 80’s, changing times greatly reduced the time women had available to join the League. All the other leagues in Oakland County merged. The Troy League, however, continued and actually expanded, to become LWV Troy Area. This allowed the Troy League to concentrate on the Troy civic arena.
The last few years have seen a demise of many non-political groups, to the point where several local papers have commented “League is the only nonpartisan game in town”.
We are a small group of very busy people, and people know us best for our main goals: outreach to educate the voters in a nonpartisan way through Candidate’s nights, Voter Guides, VOTE411.org, and voter registration; natural resources; and education. All of our meetings are open to the public and we are open to men and women citizens of voting age. Visit us at www.lwvtroyarea.org.
To commemorate the City of Troy’s 60th Anniversary in 2015, we will publish a different story each day that highlights a person, discovery, or event that occurred locally, regionally, nationally, or even globally between 1955 and 2015 and that helped shape our lives and our community. We will try to post stories on important anniversary dates, but we also realize that dates are less critical than content and context. We will include the facts related to controversial stories, allowing our readers to form their own opinions. We invite you to read and comment on the stories. Your suggestions for topics are also welcome and can be posted on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/TroyHistoricVillage. You can also email stories or ideas to the 365 Story Editor at ed@thvmail.org.
