In Memory of Helen Mary Williams CONGRESSMAN ADAM B. SCHIFF OF CALIFORNIA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Thursday, March 09, 2006 Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the life of Helen Mary Williams. Helen Mary passed away on Tuesday, January 10, 2006. She will be missed dearly by countless members of the community which she served so thoughtfully over the past 30 years. Helen Mary was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up during the Great Depression. She attended Coe College and graduated Cum Laude in 1942 with a Bachelor's degree in Speech. While in college, she volunteered for her local radio station, becoming one of the first women in Iowa to be on the radio. She went on to become Assistant Program Director at WIND in Gary, Indiana. Later, she moved back to Chicago where she was a writer and broadcaster for CBS. In the late 1950s, Mrs. Williams decided to become a teacher and she made her way to Pasadena, California. As a science teacher at Cleveland Elementary School, Mrs. Williams founded the Junior Audubon Science Club in 1959. The Club was dedicated to teaching inner-city youth about nature. With the help of community activists and involved parents, the science club expanded and was renamed Outward Bound Adventures (OBA) and incorporated as a nonprofit environmental educational youth organization. When asked about the beginnings of OBA, Mrs. Williams said, ``It was really laughable when we started doing these trips back in 1959 and 1960. None of the leaders had done much in the way of High Sierra trips, so we goofed a bit. But we also learned. And now we found out that kids are basically kids; by that I mean, they respond well to positive reinforcement both inside and outside the classroom.'' Mrs. Williams knew that OBA was exactly the type of program that every inner-city youth should have available to them, and by 1969, Mrs. Williams and OBA had served over 20,000 urban youth. Helen Mary Williams was a visionary. She had faith that people would believe in her vision; she had faith that every child could learn and improve academic and social skills by being exposed to the wonders of the great outdoors. Mrs. Williams served on the OBA Board of Directors until her death and received many awards throughout her career. The time and energy she gave to children and their parents was remarkable. Helen Mary leaves behind more than 30,000 youth and adults whose lives have been forever changed. I ask all Members of the United States House of Representatives to join me today in honoring the life of Helen Mary Williams.