Cokie RobertsThe Opening Session featured keynote speaker Cokie Roberts telling tales of family pets, her parents' political careers, the women who shaped the country, and her native New Orleans.
Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc. sponsored the Saturday event to kick off the convention. The session started with recognition of attendees who volunteered to rehabilitate local animal shelters and with the presentation of the AVMA Award and other honors.
Roberts, a journalist for National Public Radio and CBS News, then spoke about "Lessons Learned: From the Ladies of Liberty – to Katrina."
She began by thanking her own veterinarian for treating her family's cats and dogs, including a Bassett Hound that showed his nervousness by projectile pooping. She described another of her Bassett Hounds, which liked to raid the refrigerator and be on the radio, as being more famous than she was.
Roberts went on to welcome the audience to the area, which both of her parents represented in Congress.
"We bury people above ground in New Orleans because it is quicker to get them to the polls that way," she joked.
Roberts also drew laughter when she recounted how her mother later became the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, which Roberts compared with Bourbon Street in New Orleans because all the men wear dresses.
In seriousness, Roberts said her mother was an inspiration for the books she wrote about how women helped build the early United States.
Roberts based her books largely on letters between the founding fathers and their wives, which she said are more revealing than official correspondence from the founders.
"They knew that they were doing something extraordinary, and so they wrote their letters with that in mind. They knew their letters would be published, and so their letters were stiff and formal and often pompous. But their letters to the women are not that way at all. They're full of their fierce longings, loves, ambitions, and humor," Roberts said. "And of course, we've come to think of them as these bronze and marble deities, but you can be sure their wives did not think of them that way. So the women's letters to them are also quite wonderful."
Roberts noted examples of the women's courage during the American Revolution. Abigail Adams was very much alone in taking care of her family and household. Martha Washington traveled to Valley Forge each winter with food and fabric, and she joined the other officers' wives in cooking and sewing for the soldiers.
Women helped shape the country after the revolution partly by forming societies to help the poor, Roberts said. She said these women's societies were precursors of associations such as the AVMA. Residents of New Orleans saw the importance of such freestanding associations after Hurricane Katrina.
"Three years ago, when the storm hit, it was a failure of government at every level," Roberts said.
She said volunteers from many organizations, including AVMA members, are helping rebuild the area.
"It is in the tradition of the women who came before us, the people who came before us," Roberts said. "You are in the continuum of those great women."
