Photo: Cotteycollegemarketing / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Members of P.E.O. Chapter FS in Clarion celebrated the 100th anniversary of their chapter in 2023. The chapter was organized on Feb. 28, 1921.
P.E.O. is an international sisterhood founded in 1869 at Iowa Wesleyan College in Mount Pleasant, and Iowa still has more chapters than almost any other state. The organization’s work centers on education for women. It runs Cottey College in Nevada, Missouri, and gives scholarships, grants and loans to women going to school.
A century-old chapter in a town of Clarion’s size means generations of local women have kept it running, meeting in members’ homes and raising money for the educational funds. The chapter’s motto for the occasion was “Women Helping Women Reach for the Stars.”
Jill Ostrander writes for Clarion News Online.