The connection between Chicago and New Orleans is a mere train ride, as I have disclosed before, but it still amazes me when I read about another Chicagoan with NOLA roots.
Especially this one! I read NOLA.com more frequently than I do my own news venues which may explain how I somehow missed that beloved Chicagoan Desiree Glapion Rogers is moving to WASHINGTON DC!
Desiree Rogers survived breast cancer, and quickly became vocal, helping others survive.
Many years ago, I remember seeing and hearing about her as a young woman. Watching the lotto numbers being drawn at night by this beautiful, brainy, black woman always made me pause. I knew nothing about her Harvard education, she just presented so warmly and firm, as if she could rule the world. Look out for her Hillary, in 2016.
I wish I could offer you guys more accurate with time-frames, but since the President's appointment, Googling her now is a bit too extensive, so we are completely relying on "House" memory here (not a good thing, but the emotion and genuine excitement and appreciation will make its way across). She has always fascinated me. By the time my little guy was playing basketball, (he was 4, he is a gross overachiever), the only league that would accept him so young was Marty Nesbitt and "Hoops". I had no idea that the Hyde Parkers were so high-powered and charged. I quickly learned that she was married to John Rogers of Ariel Capital and that they were the premier couple.
She unassumingly rose above being someone's high-powered spouse to head Illinois' Peoples Gas, and other positions, running programs as a seasoned executive, she was an enigmatic figure with a powerful name.
photo of Desiree Rogers
Jennifer Zdon, The Times-Picayune
When I learned how bravely she handled cancer, divorce, single-parenting ( her daughter Victoria, is now attending Yale), and then to find that she was formerly a ZULU Queen, wow, this person has really just continuously inspired me.
Congratulations to Ms. Desiree Rogers. New Orleans' age old saying of "laissez les bon temps rouler" will now have new global meaning as Ms. Rogers is the incoming White House social secretary. Parties in the White House with a New Orleanian's flair!!
In the black community we have been quietly joking, (not seriously readers...okay, maybe just a tad bit serious!) that there will be barbecues and chitterlings in the White House(no longer just a big house to colored people, at long last)!! Well, now we can assuredly say there will be gumbo too!
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