Club News

The regular meeting of P.E.O. Chapter J was held at 6:30 p.m. on Nov. 5, at the home of Debbie Leith with Leslie Paul and Katie Lujan as co-hostesses.

President Sara Bartlett called the meeting to order. Treasurer Debbie Leith reported that dues for 2016 may now be paid.

Special committee reports consisted of Donna Orris reporting on her visits to members unable to attend meetings. President Bartlett thanked the evening?s hostess and reminded the group of the next meeting to be held on December 3 in the home of Chris Marshall.

Katie Lujan reported on the International Peace Scholar Project. She shared that IPS was established in 1949 to provide scholarships for international women students pursuing graduate study in the United States and Canada. For the 2015-2016 academic year, 184 scholarships were awarded to IPS recipients from 75 countries for a total of $1,606,350.

The evening?s speaker was Katie Lujan, introduced by her mother, Marde McConnell. Katie Lujan presented a program about her 15-year work in Family Law. She works with her father, Joe McConnell, and Craig Davis and Jim Lloyd in a firm which was begun over 100 years ago by Ed Morrison Sr.

She said one area she works in is divorce and that Iowa is a ?no fault? divorce state, requiring mediation participation by both parties. If children are involved there are two concerns: legal custody and physical care with the state requiring all parents of children to attend a four-hour class called ?Children in the Middle.?

Katie also handles juvenile delinquency situations in which many things could happen, everything from probation to being sent to a state training school.

Katie is involved in "child in need of assistance" cases, situations of abuse and neglect of children, usually identified by DHS. The goal is always for the child to remain with the parents and to try to remedy the problems. She says that in her experience parents almost always really love their children; but some parents aren?t able to make all their necessary changes and parental rights are terminated.

Katie concluded by saying that one of the most rewarding parts of family law involves adoptions, something which she had been involved in that very day.