19 Years Later, JLS Unveils New Logo

Susan Evani, Diamond Tiara Award Winner

Tonight I had the opportunity to attend the Junior League of Seattle Fall Kick-Off meeting at beautiful Daniels Recital Hall in downtown Seattle.  There were around 300 women in attendance and in traditional Junior League fashion, there was food and wine to share before the meeting.  We were also greeted with an organ recital by Mark Anderson, artist-in-residence.

As Natalie Bowman, 2010-2011 Junior League of Seattle President, began the meeting, she recognized JLS member, Susan Evani, with the "Diamond Tiara" award for going above and beyond expectations.  A highlight of the evening was the unveiling of the new Junior League of Seattle logo.  Unveiling a new JLS logo, took me back to my JLS President-Elect year 19 years ago when I asked Terry Heckler of Heckler Associates, branding stategist of  Starbucks and Cinnabon fame, to design a new JLS logo pro bono.  I can still remember jumping through many hoops to seek membership input and support and know that Natalie and her team have had to do the same thing.



JLS President, Natalie Bowman

 An impressive factoid that Natalie shared is that there are 180 Provisional members in the JLS Provisional class this fall.  This is one of the largest if not the largest Provisional class in the entire United States.  It will be exciting to watch the leaders that will germinate from such a large group.

In addition to my remarks about volunteer leadership and accessing the skills that we learn through our volunteer activities in business later such as I have in ZINO Society, the other speaker was a first year Active JLS member, Bernadette Merikle, who received the "Provisional of the Year" award last year and now this year is representing Washington State in the AJLI Vision 2020 initiative.  Though Bernadette professed social ineptitude, she charmed the entire audience with her humor and her warm smile.

Bernadette Merikle

I was struck with the energy in the room and the enormous potential of each of these current and future leaders and remember having similar feelings of awe when I was President of the Junior League of Seattle all those years ago.