His Brightness, Her Face

The last poem I'll put up for now is one that I wrote for Miss America, a few days after she won the Pageant in the Fall of 2001. Her name was Katie Harman, and her "cause" started as the Making Memories Breast Cancer Foundation, which had been started by a friend of mine named Fran Hansen. Katie had volunteered at some of the Foundation's fund-raising events, and subsequently entered the Miss Portland Pageant.

She won it, and the rest is history.

I wanted to write an acrostic poem, but didn't know whether to use "Miss America", or "Katie Harman", as the first letter of each line. They had the same number of letters, so I laughingly thought to myself that I ought to use one to start the first half, and one to start the last half, of each line.

That is, indeed, how it eventually turned out.

Peg and I were flying to Indianapolis for the 2nd USA Formula One Gran Prix, at IMS. Sitting in the St. Louis Airport, the inspiration hit me, and Peg went to the magazine stand and bought me a yellow lined pad; sitting there in the gate, I wrote the poem which follows.

I went to the Library in Southport, Indiana, and emailed the poem to Mrs. Hansen; she subsequently set it with pictures, had it framed, and sent me a copy. She also had Katie autograph a copy, and sent me that, too.

It's one of the only two autographs I have, the other being that of Jack Hayford .. among other things, he wrote the Praise Chorus "Majesty", and he sent me a note in 2000, in response to a letter I'd sent him.

Remember, you can click on the image and it'll enlarge to a more readable form, albeit this one's pretty big. And also, please note that the Crowns divide each line, they don't divide the poem into two columns.

Note: The Poem is not two columns, although the graphics make it appear so.