[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6394]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise in honor of National Women's 
History Month, and I would like to recognize some of the great women 
throughout our Nation's history by focusing on my congressional 
district in South Florida.
  These pioneers have fought valiantly for various causes, but they 
have all helped to lead the exodus of American women from an era of 
subjugation into one of equality between the genders. In South Florida, 
we have truly been blessed by the lives and the leadership of some of 
the great pioneering women of our Nation's history.
  I'm talking about women like Roxcy Bolton. Roxcy was inducted into 
the Florida Women's Hall of Fame for forcing police and prosecutors to 
make rape crime a priority, as well as illustrating to health 
departments the need for rape treatment centers.
  Dr. Ellen Prager is another such woman of greatness in South Florida. 
Dr. Prager has dedicated 20 years of her life to our ocean. She has had 
an accomplished career that began as a safety diver and research 
assistant at an underwater habitat in St. Croix. Now, Dr. Prager is the 
chief scientist for the Aquarius Reef Base in Key Largo, Florida, where 
I have had the distinct pleasure of scuba diving with her and her 
esteemed scientists twice already.
  Aquarius is the only operating undersea research laboratory in the 
world, and it allows Ellen and her fellow scientists to spend as much 
as 2 consecutive weeks underwater studying the Florida Keys National 
Marine Sanctuary. From Aquarius, Dr. Prager utilizes a telepresence to 
educate people around the world about the wonders of our planet's 
oceans.
  Marjory Stoneman Douglas was another such pioneering woman. Ms. 
Douglas began Friends of the Everglades, an advocacy group dedicated to 
the preservation of the Florida river of grass. Ms. Douglas was awarded 
the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work on behalf of this 
precious and delicate ecosystem, which has become engrained in the 
unique culture of the great State of Florida.
  Athalie Range, Mr. Speaker, was another pioneer among the great women 
of Florida. Ms. Range was the former president of the Liberty City 
Elementary PTA in 1953. Ms. Range fought to eliminate the deplorable 
conditions of segregated public schools. She may not have been the only 
one to notice the disparity between white and black schools, but she 
was one of the first to do something positive about it. She stood 
before the all-white school board, which turned out to be no match for 
her fighting spirit. These segregationist policies, which seemed to be 
set in stone, were smashed beneath the weight of her mighty will.
  In fact, South Florida is blessed with many remarkable women, and our 
chapter of RESULTS is cultivating distinguished, altruistic women like 
Betsy Skipp, Gale Neumann, and Kathleen Gordon. These women have 
devoted their precious time and their ample talents to this amazing 
organization that advocates solutions to raising the standards of 
living throughout the globe.
  Their role within RESULTS has been to pioneer the use of 
microenterprise programs to empower even more women to pursue their 
dreams and achieve greatness of their own. These women are heroines. I 
admire them, and young girls in South Florida aspire to achieve even a 
fraction of what they have.
  Every day I am thankful that my daughters will have the benefit of 
walking the road that these courageous women have paved for all of us.

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