Toastmasters, like many other groups of the time, had its good ol’ boys club rules. In order to join the large and well-known organization 38 years ago, Helen Blanchard was asked to choose a male name, as hers was turned in with the initial “H” only.
Fortunately for her, Helen’s club in Point Loma made that decision. She looks Grecian so they gave her the pseudonym Homer. For more than three years, until national rules changed in 1973, Helen, aka Homer, presented her topics under a male gender profile.
Originally working for Naval Research and Development, now known as SPAWAR, in Point Loma at the same time as she was a Navy wife and mother of two, Blanchard was asked to recruit and train new employees, all male, for her company. She had seen an ad in the local newspaper advertising “present with confidence” but hadn’t read far enough to see the “male only” postscript.
Slowly, with other groups integrating women into their ranks (Rotary International began in 1989 ” Florence Riford was the first inductee in the La Jolla branch), Blanchard was officially restored with her real name. She claimed one office after another until she became president of her club (with still only one other woman in attendance) in 1973.
After being rejected as an international director in her first run for that office, she became national president for 1985-’86, which is still on her only business card. However, one delegate told her that her running at all “separated the men from the boys,” and her own brother has not lived down his words of “you didn’t do badly ” for a woman.” The following year she was elected for the same office in a landslide, as she had in the interim become a new club chair, increasing the organization with nine new clubs, including La Jolla, to set a district record.
La Jolla was one of the hardest clubs to organize. Today it is recognized for its longstanding membership and accomplished members.
The 30th anniversary of the club’s founding was held June 3 at the YMCA Firehouse, 7877 Herschel Ave., the club’s regular Tuesday evening meeting place. Karl Strauss Restaurant provided complimentary dinner for the group.
Blanchard says that her life has had many silver linings after rain and that the La Jolla club was one of the rainbows!
Her autobiography titled “Breaking the Ice” will have its first book signing in August at the International Toastmasters Convention in Calgary, Canada.
For more information about the La Jolla Toastmasters, call (858) 483-0116.
