1954-1972

Three Mississippians make it in the Big Appia At the end of the Broadway musical "Ain't Misbehavin," the pianist turns to the audience with bis one line: "One neve"r knows, do one?" with a trucking magazine. "I wrote about mudflaps and ICC regulations," she laughed.

While on the job, she met her husband Larry. They moved to California for a while, then returned to New York. Her first job on her return was in international relations for the league of Women Voters. She also became active in the United Nations Organization, a non-governmental agency. Two and one-half years ago, she became head of the eight-member multi-national, multi-lingual department that answers 8.5,000 inquiries per ·year. ''There's a lot of drudgery involved. If people want to know how many nations belong · to the U.N. or need a copy of the pope's speech or a document on energy, they write to us." "Every letter about Iran comes to us. Those letters may be requests for information or requests for expressions of opinion. Nearly 1,400 letters about the Iran crisis came in January," she said. Members of her department try to acknowledge every letter and request "except for the nuts." "You never catch up. We have six phones, and they're ringing all the time. It is frustrating," she said. "But it's thrilling, and when you walk across the street and see those flags flying , it feels good to know these nations are trying - not succeeding, but trying." There are 152 nations represented in the United

This line could well sum up the lives of tbree_Mississippians who have "mac(e it" in the Big Apple - New York City. With beginnings in Newton and .Forest, two went to East Central Junior College, then on to the University of Mississippi, Jackson State University, and the University of Southe~n Mi~sissippi. Today's realities were dreams back then. Today Martha McMullan Aasen directs the United Nations Public Inqwrles Unit of the Department of Public Information, Eyelyn "Snoopy" Bender plays for the New York Stars, and Ted Hanna directs the Public Relations Department of King Features, Inc. On their recent trip to New York City, the W"lldcat staff bad the opportunity of visiting with all three Missi~ippimp and hearing about their experiences on the road to success. After receiving a B.A. in English from the University of Mississippi in 1951, Martha McMullan and her roommate from Amory decided to go to New York City. They had expected their families to be against their idea but were pleasantly surprised to find that their families were delighted with the idea. The summer before they left, they took some secretarial courses "to have someUling to fall back on."

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"That was a wonderful time Nations which employees 7,000 to go. It wasn't so dangerous peJ!SODs in New York City and then. We had a ball, a an additional 11,000 in other wonderful sort of 'My Sister countries:throughout the world. Eileen' time. South Pacific was When Evelyn Bender watched still playing and The Rose television in Newton, you could Tattoo and The King and I. be sure she was watching We'd go .down to get tickets to a basketball and dreaming. show and find they didn't have When she was watching the any for that night, and we'd pros so she could imitate their say, 'That's all right. We'll be moves, Snoopy, as she is known here.'" by her friends, did not know Mrs. Aasen's first job was that one day soon she would be ::.______________a pro being watched by some other little girl with a dream.

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