.
.
.
A Woman for the World
Former Rep. Beverly Barton Butcher Byron ’50 spoke today as the first guest lecturer in this year’s “Women for the World” series. Byron entertained Upper School students with anecdotes of her time in Congress and shared with them her advice as they move on from NCS and begin their careers.
“Whatever you do, it needs to be something that you need to be able to get in the morning and say ‘I can’t wait to go to work,’” Byron said. “In my estimation, there is not an area today where you can’t have a challenge; you just have to want to do it.”
A DC native, Byron was elected to Congress in 1978 to represent Maryland’s 6th District after the sudden death by heart attack of her husband, Goodloe Byron, a St. Albans graduate who’d already served four terms in Congress. Byron said that she suddenly found herself a widow, single parent, unemployed, and, then, a candidate for Congress.
She was equal to the challenge, she said, partly because of the self-confidence she developed during her time at NCS. When Byron was elected, there were only 16 female members of Congress; today there are 70. She represented Maryland for 14 years, serving on the Armed Services Committee and becoming the first woman to chair a sub-committee and the Interior Affairs Committee. Byron said that to her knowledge, she is also the first NCS alumna to be elected to Congress.
She also shared some of her favorite stories with the girls. Her full comments can be heard here, but some highlights include:
- Receiving an honorary degree from Boston University (one of four that she has received) with jazz musician Wynton Marsalis and Mister Rogers, as more than 6,000 people in the audience sang “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?”
- Becoming the first woman to fly in the SR-71 “Blackbird” spy plane, capable of Mach 3 speeds at 90,000 feet. “It was awesome.”
Listen to the audio recording of Rep. Byron’s speech here (the student questions from the Q&A session were not recorded and have been removed, but Byron's answers are included).
