Anniversary event celebrates NDEA, honors Carl Elliott
August 20 from 6-7:30 p.m. there will be an event honoring the 60th anniversary of the signing of the National Defense Educational Act – sponsored by former Congressman Carl Elliott, originally from Vina, and Sen. Lister Hill, both from Alabama.
The event will take place at the University of North Alabama in the Guillot University Center and will feature speakers including Rep. Johnny Mack Morrow, Elliott’s nephew Buzz McKinney and Mary Jolley and Julian Butler, both aides to Elliott while in Congress.
Grant Morrow, a young aspiring actor from Spring Hill, Tenn., who attends Summit High School, will portray Elliott as a young man about to leave Vina on foot to reach the University of Alabama to begin his college career with a little over $2 in his pocket.
An exhibit of Carl Elliott memorabilia from the Red Bay Museum in Red Bay will also be on display. Elliott, who published several volumes of history books of North Alabama, also wrote the Red Bay history book, One Hundred Years of Memories, an Oral History of Red Bay, Alabama.
Aug. 21 another event to honor the occasion will be held at 8:30 a.m. at Vina High School, where Carl Elliott attended school. As the eldest of nine children, Elliott would walk to school early so he could start the coal fires used to warm the school rooms. This is where his dream began to be a United States congressman and where he vowed to help bring education to all Americans, without regard to their economic situations.
Grant Morrow will also be at Vina to share the story of young Elliott and begin a symbolic “walk” to the University of Alabama.
The NDEA helped improve science, foreign language and technology education nationwide. To date, more than 20 million people have attended college under this act, which established student financial aid without restrictions of gender, race or nationality.
Elliott also wrote the Library Services Act, which brought bookmobiles and library services to millions of rural Americans.
In 1990 the Kennedy Library in Boston, Mass., started the Profile in Courage in Award to honor a person who had suffered for his or her stands in civil service. Out of more than 5,000 nominees from across the country, Elliott won and went to the library in Boston, along with friends and family, to receive the award from the Kennedy family.
From that moment, a friendship began between Elliott and Jacqueline Onassis, who worked with him and Mike D’Orso to write Elliott’s autobiography, “The Cost of Courage.”
The public is invited to attend both events. An additional event at the University of Alabama is scheduled for Sept. 7.
