[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 34 (Monday, March 17, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E487]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    IN RECOGNITION OF CAROLYN LANIER

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. LARRY COMBEST

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, March 17, 1997

  Mr. COMBEST. Mr. Speaker, the pages of the Congressional Record 
chronicle two centuries of actions affecting the everyday lives of 
Americans. Today, I'd like to add to that history with the account of 
an everyday American who has affected the lives of the needy beyond the 
boundaries of her community.
  Carolyn Lanier has for 14 years served as the South Plains Food Bank 
executive director in Lubbock, TX. Her leadership has brought the food 
bank from its beginnings as a simple storeroom with shelves of canned 
goods, to its modern-day operation with refrigeration, a working farm 
and a dehydration plant. The food bank's success in feeding the needy 
and in helping other food banks created the necessity for the 
facility's Breedlove Dehydration Plant. Each day, the South Plains Food 
Bank under the leadership of Carolyn Lanier, its patrons and the many 
volunteer workers, feed as many as 16,000 people through 254 charitable 
agencies in a 20-county area of the vast Texas Panhandle-South Plains-
Permian Basin Region.
  Carolyn is the first to answer the compliment about her service by 
praising those working with her and the many financial supporters of 
the South Plains Food Bank. In recognizing those good works, it is 
helpful for those of us here in Congress and for people who study the 
pages of the Congressional Record to know that people just like Carolyn 
Lanier, who was qualified by the experience of feeding and caring for 
her family, saw a need and a way to help feed and care for an extended 
family of thousands and thousands she had never met.
  Carolyn's success--and thus the success of the South Plans Food 
Bank--comes from her caring and her determined effort. Those seeing the 
need in their community can take heart from Carolyn's example. And 
those of us here in Congress seeking ways to meet those needs are 
gratified by these efforts. Government must be a servant of the people, 
doing all it can to encourage these charitable works.

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