July 22 Meeting

Our speaker was former Congressman George R. Nethercutt, Jr., a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2005, now the founder and chairman of the Nethercutt Foundation (www.nethercuttfoundation.org), a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution that exists “to develop in young adults an understanding of government, business, public policy issues and civics, and to foster leadership qualities that will add value to their communities.”

Nethercutt stressed how much of our common heritage of history and civics has seemingly been lost these days through disinterest and simple failure to teach it. In one survey conducted by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, university students at some of the best schools in the country almost unanimously flunked a simple test of basic civics questions; and amazingly, a group of public officials scored even lower. (Try the test yourself at http://www.americancivicliteracy.org/resources/quiz.aspx).

The Nethercutt Foundation works to support and restore this common fund of knowledge about our country through programs like its summer-in-Washington fellowship program. In addition, Cong. Nethercutt has recently written a book, In Time With America, that uses music from the Revolutionary period as a framework for valuable historical and civic fundamentals. Available through your favorite book dealer.

Winner of the Arlington Education Foundation Scholarship
We were also pleased to meet this year’s Arlington Rotary Education Foundation scholarship winner Zoe Ballars and her mother Arlene. Zoe is an outstanding student, a member of the honor society, active in chorale and in the ACLU; she plans to attend the University of Virginia, concentrating on


English and music, and move on to law school.