heard girls + lisa ling = OPRAH.COM

One group of girls {Grace, Emma, Sydney, Bess, Kate, Nala, Pallie, Whitney & Kelly}were walking towards the capital and Sydney spotted Lisa Ling. She was trying to convince the rest of the group that it was "really her" so they encouraged her to go and speak to her...so she did. The rest of the group ran toward her and started telling her our "heard girls story". She was immediately captivated by our story, continued to ask questions and interview all the girls.

Lisa Ling is in DC covering the inauguration on behalf of Oprah.com. One of Oprah's senior producers was with her and made a connection to Georgia because she graduated from Fayetteville High School and Valdosta College.

She said she was really impressed that the girls were able to speak up progressively while living in a majority conservative town and state. Lisa Ling asked if the girls voted and while most of them aren't even voting age but they assured her they voted for Obama in their school elections. When the girls were telling her about our family she mentioned in all sincerity that "it was times like this that made her wish she had a big family".

This morning we got a call that Lisa Ling had posted about meeting the girls on her blog:

http://www.oprah.com/article/world/peopleandpolitics/pkginauguration/20090119_orig_inaugurationlisablog/2

2:32 p.m. Sunday, January 18, 2009

I met a family of 18 beautiful girls ages 12 to 77, from Fayetteville, Georgia—a state that Barack Obama lost—who came together to be part of this week. They are the female descendants of 5 deceased sisters whom they said would have been so proud to see this day. They told me that their family has always been very progressive; very different from the conservative community from which they hail,. They said that they were criticized by a lot of people for wanting to come to Washington. I was moved by the young girls who stood apart from so many in their area to proclaim their support for their candidate. They said it was important for them to come to DC to represent those in the South who are not closed minded (their words, not mine).

Tonight before dinner we went to oprah.com to pull up the article and found that there is a VIDEO of the interview posted of the girls!!

VIEW VIDEO HERE:
http://www.oprah.com/media/20090112_inaug_georgia

The excitement, shrieks and smiles that happened in this room are truly indescribable.

There is a journalist/photgrapher from the Atlanta Journal Constitution with us tonight documenting our story and she was able to capture this spontaneous moments...will have pictures from her soon!