WOOF: 50 Women Over 50 - Ellen

The list is endless. Women Only Over Fifty (WOOFers) who lead vibrant, meaningful lives and just seem to get younger every day.

She insisted "The show must go on!" when laid up with a torn back ligament and interviewed guests from a hospital bed on the set.

She followed two former US presidents to the podium at a Tulane University commencement in New Orleans wearing a bathrobe and furry slippers. "They told me everyone would be wearing robes," she said.

She was picked to voice the character Dory, a fish with short-term memory loss, in the animated movie "Finding Nemo" after the film's director said she typically changed the subject five times before finishing a sentence on her show.

She's a TV talk show host, a standup comic, a multiple-time award show host (and Emmy winner), the new American Idol judge, and an advocate for human and animal rights. And funny as hell.

Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres, for making life a whole lot more fun and reminding WOOFers everywhere to stay a puppy at heart!

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March: Women's History Month

March's Woofer Revolution looks at Women's History Month!

The National Women's History Project , founded in 1980, is an educational nonprofit organization. Its mission is to recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and programs.

Here's the story behind Women's History Month taken from their website: As recently as the 1970's, women's history was virtually an unknown topic in the K-12 curriculum or in general public consciousness. To address this situation, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a "Women's History Week" celebration for 1978.The week March 8th, International Women's Day, was chosen as the focal point of the observance. The local Women's History Week activities met with enthusiastic response, and dozens of schools planned special programs for Women's History Week. Over one-hundred community women participated by doing special presentations in classrooms throughout the country and an annual "Real Woman" Essay Contest drew hundreds of entries. The finale for the week was a celebratory parade and program held in the center of downtown Santa Rosa, California.

By 1986, 14 states had already declared March as Women's History Month. This momentum and state-by-state action was used as the rational to lobby Congress to declare the entire month of March 1987 as National Women's History Month. In 1987, Congress declared March as National Women's History Month in perpetuity. A special Presidential Proclamation is issued every year which honors the extraordinary achievements of American women.

The organization's overarching theme for 2010 and our 30th Anniversary celebration is Writing Women Back into History. It often seems that the history of women is written in invisible ink. Even when recognized in their own times, women are frequently left out of the history books. To honor our 2010 theme, the NWHP highlight pivotal themes from previous years. Each of these past themes recognizes a different aspect of women’s achievements, from ecology to art, and from sports to politics.

WOOF wishes to recognize those women who brought us to this point, those women who are working daily to advocate for our rights, and those women who will soon carry the torch!

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Walk On

I saw a story on the news the other night that concerned me. It was about a school system that voted to eliminate failing grades. This seems to reflect a growing trend in our society that is an attempt to spare children from experiencing failure and disappointment. For example, in some cases, every child makes the team or gets a ribbon, even for finishing last in a competition.

I believe one of the reasons I became a strong WOOFer is because I experienced failure and disappointment. Whenever I would fall on my face, finish last, not reach a goal or make the team, my father would say "You don't always win and who told you life was fair anyway? Take this experience and grow from it. Get up, brush yourself off and walk on!"

This journey we call life is full of failure and disappointment. I'm glad I learned early that the bumps in the road make us better and stronger human beings. It also prepares us to handle the many roadblocks we will face as adults.

Melinda

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WOOF: 50 Women Over 50: Jane Goodall

The list is endless. Women Only Over Fifty (WOOFers) who lead vibrant, meaningful lives and just seem to get younger every day.

In 1960 Jane Goodall traveled from England to Tanzania, entering the world of wild chimpanzees. She was only 23 and the world she explored was vastly unknown. It is said she was "armed" with little more than "a notebook and pair of binoculars."

Perhaps she was equipped with something more important: optimism.

"Tarzan" and "Dr. Doolittle" her favorite books as a child, and a mother who encouraged her that she could do anything she set her mind to, Goodall chose not to take the easy road. Faith in herself and a hopeful spirit have brought her far and allowed her to make a difference ... the world over.

She carries that optimism with her today.

"It is easy to be overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness as we look around the world. We are losing species at a terrible rate, the balance of nature is disturbed, and we are destroying our beautiful planet. We have fear about water supplies, where future energy will come from – and most recently the developed world has been mired in an economic crisis. But in spite of all this I do have hope. And my hope is based on four factors."

To read more on Goodall's reasons for hope, click here.

WOOF gives four paws up to Ms Goodall for her tireless, lifetime efforts to promote conservation and species living together in harmony.

Jane Goodall: British primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist, and UN Messengers of Peace. Known for her 45-year study of chimpanzee social and family interactions.

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WOOFer Revolution: The March Women

WOOFer Revolution marches on! Here's our special take on the subject:

Meg, Jo, Beth & Amy March. Many Woofers, when we were young pups, grew up with these characters in Louisa May Alcott's novel "Little Women"! They were like our friends and neighbors.

Do you identify with one or more of the characters? Why?

Today some of us relate more closely to the author herself. She often said she modeled Jo after her own personality. Learning that Alcott was an advocate for women's suffrage and was actually the first woman to register to vote in a school board election in Concord, Massachutes, that's not too hard to believe!

So what would Louisa think of women in this the 21st Century? What would you tell her, or one of the March women, if you could?

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