Early on, when she was a student at Auburn University, Jeanne entered a beauty pageant and ended up being Miss North Carolina. What separated her from the pac early on was, in addition to being beautiful, she was 6 feet, 2 inches tall. And she made it work for her. Within that first year she gave 500 speeches. They were hilarious.
As you know, I admire, and have learned a lot from, stand up comics. Jeanne didn't call herself a comic. She was a humorist. In the 80s I was a member of the National Speakers Association. At that time NSA was available only to paid professional speakers and they needed to provide documented proof of it. It was a serious organization. Jeanne not only qualified, but she eventually became president of this prodigious group.
So Jeanne and I crossed paths a few times. I was always in awe. She knew who she was. She was extremely hard working and traveled constantly. She had a strict moral code about what she would and would not do. This helped me shape my our moral code. It wasn't the same as Jeanne's. I had no interest in crisscrossing the country leaving my family and other priorities.
But I was a speaker. And I knew that, in order be heard, I had to be entertaining and disciplined and that meant continually finding better ways of communicating in an entertaining way. I wasn't a beauty queen and I wasn't 6 feet, 2 inches tall. But I was grounded, and hard working.
Thank you Jeanne Robertson.
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