A Dog Named Beatha Lee

You'll never believe what happened in a neighborhood association in Annandale, Virginia:  they elected a DOG as their president!  And they didn't even know they were electing a dog.  Ha!  I think this is hilarious, and it serves them right because none of the humans in the group wanted to run for office.

Okay, so what happened was that this man named Mark Crawford had already been elected the president of the Hillbrook-Tall Oaks neighborhood three times, and the rules said he could not be elected again.  So he went around and asked lots of people if they would please run for president because somebody needed to be president.  But nobody would do it because they all said they were way too busy.

So finally Mr. Crawford got frustrated and told the nominating committee that his dog would run for the office.  His dog was a soft-coated wheaten terrier named Beatha Lee.  And her first name is pronounced bee-ah-tah.  So the committee checked the bylaws, and they found out that Beatha Lee had the right qualifications, which were (1) she lived in the neighborhood, and (2) she was a legal adult in age, which she was in dog years.  The bylaws did not say that officers had to be humans.

Anyway, the committee decided to nominate Beatha Lee for president, and when people came to the meeting to vote, they learned that the nominee was a fairly new resident, that she was interested in neighborhood activities and the outdoors, and that she had experience in Maine overseeing an estate of 26 acres.

Everybody was glad to have a volunteer running for president, so they all voted for her.  Then they ate some ice cream, watched a karate demonstration, and went home.  A few weeks later, they read in the association's newsletter that their new president promised to "govern with an even paw."  There was a photo of Beatha Lee, and the headling said "Dog Rules, Humans Apathetic (Pathetic)."  Well, some people were really mad because they had been tricked into electing a dog, and other people were embarrassed, and some just thought it was funny.

Beatha Lee has quite a few duties now that she is president, including running meetings, appointing committee members, co-signing checks, and speaking at public meetings.  But she manages these things by delegating them to her vice-president, who is her dad, Mark Crawford.  Sometimes she attends board meetings, which are held at her house, and she sits under the table and listens.  Then if she gets bored, she asks to be let out.

The people in the neighborhood have sort of accepted their doggy president now, and the board members hope that more people will run for office in the future.  Or maybe Beatha Lee will run again.  One woman was asked if she would vote for the dog again, and she said, "No... I'd vote for my cat though."