Page 23 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Winter 2020- Online Magazine

TEXAS HIGH PLAINS WRITERS

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Celebrating 100 Years 1920-2020

by Susan Brock

accomplishments, she took care of
her aging parents, was a teacher,
a postmistress and eventually, a
school superintendent. Her full-
Linda Broday Jodi Thomas Phyllis Miranda Patsy Dawson time writing career wouldn’t begin
for at least another 10 years, but
id you know that right in licensed radio station started the she went on to write five books.
our midst, a 100-year-old now worldwide concept of mass She also wrote and recorded over
Dorganization still meets on media. 400 programs for the KGNC radio
a regular basis? It’s called Texas station and wrote two weekly
High Plains Writers, also known In that same year, a 49-year-old columns with the Amarillo Globe
as Panhandle Professional Writers. woman by the name of Laura V. News.
If you have ever wanted to be an Hamner began the Panhandle Pen
author, this is the organization to Women organization in Amarillo. I’ve heard it said that the reason
join. It has a strong following and Originally created to encourage Laura and the women of Amarillo
history. women authors, the group started the club was because
was born from the Suffragette women weren’t (yet) allowed
During the years from 1920- movement that saw the nation add in the Press Club. It is fact that
1929, our nation was in the midst the Nineteenth Amendment, giving the National Press Club in
of turbulent times. The decade women the right to vote. Even Washington, D.C. didn’t allow
was nicknamed “The Roaring though Laura had never married, women to be admitted until 1971.
Twenties” for good reason. In 1920, her life was full. Just to name a few In that type of climate, it is no
the year kicking off that era, two
Constitutional Amendments were
passed: the 18th for Prohibition,
the 19th for Women’s Right to
Vote. A series of bombings in
1919-1920 culminated with the
biggest terrorist attack up to that
point in history, killing 38 people
in the middle of Wall Street, and
fueling the creation of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, headed by
J. Edgar Hoover. The League of
Nations, pre-cursor to the United
Nations, began operations. A man
named Charles Ponzi pulled off
a massive sales scam that would
change legislation on how brokers
did business. And the first live
broadcast from a commercially

Amarillo Senior Link 23