[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 130 (Monday, October 7, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1772]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               MEMORIAL RESOLUTION--MILA WILLIAMS BROOKS

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. SAM FARR

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, October 7, 2002

  Mr. FARR of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a public 
servant of the highest degree. Ms. Mila Williams Brooks, a former Peace 
Corps Country Director and economic development consultant for USAID, 
died in Washington, D.C., on September 4 after a long but spirited 
battle with cancer. She was 75. As a returned Peace Corps Volunteer, I 
wish to take this moment to express my sympathy to her family, and to 
pay tribute to her extraordinary life.
  An independent woman of unsurpassed energy with a remarkable sense of 
adventure and fun, Mila was born in Topeka, Kansas. She graduated from 
the University of Kansas with degrees in Political Science and French. 
After college, she married and had five children. In the mid-sixties 
Mila drove to Mexico with four young children in tow to establish a new 
life and offer her children cross-cultural opportunities. In Mexico, 
she learned fluent Spanish, attended graduate school, and hosted a 
radio show. In 1969, she returned to the United States and began work 
with the Peace Corps. In 1973, she was appointed Deputy Peace Corps 
Country Director in Santiago, Chile. Before returning to the U.S. in 
1977, she served as an economic development consultant for the U.S. 
Agency for International Development (USAID) and as the Southern Cone 
regional representative of the Young Men's Christian Association.
  In 1985, she was appointed Country Director of the Peace Corps in the 
Dominican Republic, a post she held until 1988. In 1989, she was 
selected as one of two Americans to work in pre-election activities in 
Nicaragua. Following the 1990 elections, she was selected to run 
USAID's democratic initiatives program in Nicaragua, a post she held 
until 1993. That year, again stateside, she settled in Napa, 
California, and continued to consult internationally.
  Mila was a fiercely devoted and loving mother. Throughout her life, 
she had the gift of loyal and loving friends who received the great 
gift of her love and friendship in return. She will be deeply missed 
and mourned by all who knew her, especially her four children Trent, 
Mia, Brad and Holly and her three grandchildren Tiffany, Maxwell, and 
Sophie.

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