P.E.O. Sisterhood promotes educational opportunities for women at convention

Nevada Daily Mail

The Missouri State Chapter of the P.E.O. Sisterhood held its 117th annual convention recently.

More than 330 representatives of P.E.O. chapters across Missouri attended the convention, held June 4-6, in St. Louis. Tricia Bobbett, president of Chapter DW; Carol Urner, vice president of Chapter ND, and Anna Seewoester, president of Chapter KK, served as delegates. Sylvia Martin, member of Chapter ND and incoming member of the state chapter's Missouri Cottey Scholarship Committee, also attended the convention.

Using the theme Share with P.E.O., convention attendees met and discussed several educational and philanthropic topics and projects. Jeanne Lehr of Chapter CK, St. Louis, presided over the meeting. During the convention, Charlotte Jacobs of Chapter NG in Lee's Summit, Mo., was installed as the new president of Missouri State Chapter.

The P.E.O. Sisterhood is a philanthropic organization where women celebrate the advancement of women; educate women through scholarships, grants, awards, loans, and stewardship of Cottey College; and motivate each other to achieve their highest aspirations. There are approximately 6,000 chapters in the United States and Canada with nearly 250,000 members.

The purposes of P.E.O. are educational and philanthropic, and are accomplished through projects on the local, state, and International levels. The six International projects include: the Educational Loan Fund, established in 1907 to make loans available to qualified women who desire higher education and are in need of financial assistance; International Peace Scholarship Fund, established in 1949 to provide scholarships for international women students to pursue graduate study in the United States and Canada; Cottey College, owned and supported by the P.E.O. Sisterhood since 1927, is a fully accredited liberal arts college for women at Nevada, Missouri; Program for Continuing Education, established in 1973 to provide need-based grants to women in the United States and Canada whose education has been interrupted and who find it necessary to return to school to support themselves and/or their families; P.E.O. Scholar Awards, established in 1991 to provide substantial merit-based awards for women of the United States and Canada who are either pursuing a doctoral level degree or are engaged in postdoctoral research at an accredited college, university or institution; and STAR Scholarship, established in 2009 to award scholarships to high school senior women who wish to pursue post-secondary education.