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Woman’s Club looks to the stars

By ZOË WATKINS - zwatkins@t-g.com
Posted 5/13/23

The Shelbyville Woman’s Club had a busy luncheon Wednesday for their first meeting of the 2023-24 year. Outgoing president Miriam Pietkiewicz wrapped up her term with a quote about …

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Woman’s Club looks to the stars

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The Shelbyville Woman’s Club had a busy luncheon Wednesday for their first meeting of the 2023-24 year. Outgoing president Miriam Pietkiewicz wrapped up her term with a quote about “Grace,” which was her choice of focus of the year.

“I realized that I needed grace and work on grace,” Pietkiewicz said. “So, my last statement about grace is, ‘Wherever you are, whomever you might be with, whatever you might be doing, show grace.’”

New president Dena Landers has chosen to focus on “Encouragement.”

The two words were good representations of the club’s memorial service, which was held before lunch.

To commemorate the women of the club who had passed away this last year, Landers lit 10 candles to represent the former club members as their names were read:

Polly Gill Frazier (June 20, 2022), Emma Jean Stimpson (June 21, 2022), Katherine Dale Potts (September 6, 2022), Linda Gayle Mathews (October 21, 2022), Mary Grace Landers Phillips (November 21, 2022), Nelly Campbell Barnes (December 8, 2022), Nadine Marie Hopkins (March 9, 2023), Rachel Ann Dunagan (April 2, 2023), Juanita Price Tucker (April 4, 2023), Evelyn Coffey (April 5, 2023).

To the stars

The Woman’s Club also hosted Billy Hix as the guest speaker.

Hix is a retired Bedford County Schools teacher and Solar System Ambassador for NASA. Today, he has a traveling planetarium that he takes to schools across the country to show young students the beauty and mystery of the universe.

“This what I do for fun. This is my hobby,” he said.

Showing images from the James Webb Telescope, woman’s club members saw images of dying stars and faraway galaxies. “With the James Webb Telescope, you would be able to see the body of a bumble bee on the moon,” he said.

According to Hix, scientists believe there are two trillion galaxies across the universe.

As someone who grew up in Possum Trott Road, Hix said he is passionate about bringing education to rural areas, which is part of why his presentations are at no cost to the schools. With this, he understands the importance of educators.

“Among your midst, you have so many wonderful educators, active and retired. Those people are the last saving grace of our world. If we do not support them…the world will fail,” said Hix. Like stars shining their light across millions of miles in the universe, Hix said, “Good teachers, their light travels on long after they are gone.”

Encouraging young people and citing his life, Hix said, “You need to go for it…You just never know who you’ll meet.”

He also encouraged people to mark the date of April 8, 2023, which will be the last total solar eclipse for this side of the world until 2072.

“It is something special to be outside and the temperature goes away, it gets cooler…and then the stars come out in the middle of the day. It is awesome!”