Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Serving Waitsburg, Dayton and the Touchet Valley
Cathy Lee-Haight with a photo of the current P.E.O. members in Dayton. Haight organized an exhibit about the history of P.E.O. and the Dayton chapter at the Dayton Historic Depot Museum. The exhibit will be on display through Tuesday, June 17.
DAYTON-The Dayton P.E.O., Chapter BJ, is celebrating its one hundredth anniversary with a month-long exhibit at the Dayton Historical Depot Museum, and a reception for members in June at the Waitsburg Town Hall.
The Philanthropic Education Organization is an international organization focused on helping women achieve educational goals by raising funds to support academic projects through grants, scholarships, and awards.
P.E.O. owns Cottey College, a nationally ranked, fully accredited, liberal arts and sciences college for women in Nevada, Missouri. It is a debt-free institution and welcomes women from around the world. Several Dayton students have attended Cottey College over the years, according to Cathy Lee-Haight, who created the exhibit at the museum. Kiara Zanger, daughter of Matt and Nyssa Zanger, is the most recent to attend.
The P.E.O. also has five programs to provide higher education assistance to women through scholarships, grants, awards, and loans. The Dayton chapter recognizes two outstanding Dayton High School seniors for the P.E.O. Citizenship Award. Recipients are selected by the school faculty, the associated student body officers, and the P.E.O. Awards Committee.
One boy and one girl receives the award, a check for $400, and are honored at a spring reception for family and friends. This year's award went to Lila Hutchens and Brody Carrigan.
Haight said many women in Dayton have received P.E.O. generosity, including Sadie Seney attending WSU in Pullman and Sarah Shutters at Cornish Institute in Seattle. P.E.O. also supports students with notes and care packages throughout the year.
P.E.O. was founded in 1869 by a group of female students at Iowa Wesleyan College. It has grown to 225,000 members and 6,000 local chapters in the U.S. and Canada. More than 105,000 women have benefited from the roughly 321 million dollars raised by the P.E.O. sisterhood.
The Washington Grand Chapter was formed in 1904 in Seattle with seven local chapters. Dayton P.E.O. was formed with help from a state organizer from Tacoma and members of the Walla Walla and Waitsburg chapters. Chapter BJ held its first meeting on May 13, 1925.
Visit https://daytonhistoricdepot.org for more information about The Dayton Historical Depot Museum.
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