World Photo by Lou Sennick

To honor 50 years in Coos County and 85 years nationally, the League of Women Voters of Coos County celebrated Saturday afternoon at the Coos Bay Public Library.

As part of the celebration, Edith Dietz, right, reads a timeline of the suffrage movement in American history that led up to the organization's founding. Dietz is reading about how, in 1789 when the U.S. Constitution was ratified, it gave the right to vote to adult white males who owned property and paid taxes. Others who read from the timeline are, from the left: Bernie Robinson, Alice Carlson and Jane Gigler. The timeline said that on March 8, 1950, Valerie Taylor "wrote a letter to the Oregon League of Women Voters requesting help to establish a League in Coos County. This finally happened in February 1955." The group also viewed the movie "Iron Jawed Angels" that showed the life of Alice Paul and Lucy Barnes, women who fought for passage of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.