[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 3]
[Senate]
[Page 3990]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                CHERRY BLOSSOM QUEEN ELIZABETH O'CONNOR

  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, my colleague from Connecticut is joining me 
on the floor, and we are going to spend a couple minutes talking about 
two sources of State pride. I will very briefly mention, before I talk 
about the University of Connecticut women's basketball team, that last 
Friday night the U.S. Cherry Blossom Queen was crowned in Washington. 
We are very proud in my office to say Elizabeth O'Connor was chosen, by 
a random selection process, as the Cherry Blossom Queen of the United 
States.
  She is a staff assistant in my office. She is a wonderful young woman 
who is very accomplished in many ways. A summa cum laude graduate of 
Notre Dame University from Farmington, CT, she went to Farmington High 
School. She is the daughter of wonderful parents, Fred and Katherine 
O'Connor in Farmington, CT.
  She will be going to Japan for a couple of weeks, meeting with the 
Prime Minister, the Speaker of the House, as the Cherry Blossom Queen 
of the United States.
  You can understand the source of pride in our office and in 
Connecticut that Elizabeth has been chosen as Connecticut's society 
princess crowned the Cherry Blossom Queen. We are very proud of her. I 
know she will represent the State and the country very admirably. In 
the last few years we had another queen, Shannon Kula of my office, 
also chosen the Cherry Blossom Queen. People are beginning to wonder if 
Connecticut has some fix, a hold on the cherry blossom queen festival. 
Nothing such as that has occurred. This is good fortune and good luck 
for the State of Connecticut.

                          ____________________