HISTORY OF OUR ORGANIZATION

Although our club was federated in 1961, the charter members were already a part of a loosely structured precinct organization, formed to aid the precinct chairman with voter registration, identifying Republican voters and fund raising.  Our original name was Precinct 273 Republican Women's Club and our first president was Gerry Hardway.  The 14 original members were dedicated and hard working.  At the end of the first year the membership had doubled and their emphasis was on recruiting conservative Democrats to the Republican Party. 

Through the years voter registration work has continued with block walks, tables set up in shopping centers, and booths at nearby festivals.  Besides financially supporting candidates we have supported them with thousands of volunteer hours.  We have stuffed many, many door hanger bags with campaign literature, hosted many candidate forums, manned phone banks, assisted in get out the vote (GOTV) campaigns, bought billboards and radio announcements all to promote our Republican cause.  We have had postcard and letter writing campaigns regarding various issues important to our country and our community.

The very first fund raising effort was to sell poll taxes.  The club received 8 cents for each one sold!  They promptly bought an electric typewriter for the county headquarters.   There were barbecues to raise funds to help John Tower in his race for the U.S. Senate.  We've gone from the glitzy Las Vegas nights to tamale parties, and Mexican Fiestas (Fiesta '89 raised $10,000}.  And we won't forget our VRW Cookbooks sales, garage sales, empty elephant baskets to filled goodie basket sales.  Barbara Bush did a slide show on the time she and President Bush spent in China and on another occasion we did an outstanding bus tour of Houston, and we still laugh about our Bottle Party.  You'd be surprised what was in the bottles we auctioned off.

Our members have reached out to the community.  For a number of years baby saks, receiving blankets, and other baby clothes were sewn for the Florence Crittenton Home for young mothers.  In partnership with a local grocery chain we participated in Cancer Awareness Weeks.  We have collected and distributed magazines and books to retirement homes and hospitals.  We contributed funds to help renovate a building the Boy Scouts used for meetings.  For a number of years we have been working with Valley Oaks School, to buy and distribute books for the Reading is Fundamental program while also tutoring and doing library work.

During the past 40 years we have had some great leadership.  One of our members was elected President of TFRW, one as 1st Vice President, and one as Treasurer.  Three members have been selected for the 10 Outstanding Republican Women in Texas award given by TFRW.  Three of our members have served as President of the Greater Houston Council.  We have had many members serve as Precinct Chairmen and Election judges.  Several members have served as campaign chairmen for candidates seeking elected office and they did it as volunteers!

All of the work has been rewarding as we have seen Texas evolve from having all Democrat elected officials to a true two party state, but with the last few years tremendous acceptance at the polls for Republicans.  In Harris County the last election resulted in all judicial seats being won by Republicans.

 While we are busy being Republican activists, we have fun and we make long-lasting friendships through our involvement  with other Republicans.