Arlington, VA - This summer, the Bill of Rights Institute is partnering with the Foundation for Economic Education to host the Founders Fellowship: Civil Liberty, Commerce, and the Constitution. American History and Civics teachers from across the country are invited to apply. Selected Fellows will participate in an exclusive professional development program aimed at deepening their understanding and appreciation of the American Founding.

Participating teachers will convene in Washington, D.C.  July 16-20, 2012 for a program that will expand their knowledge of the Constitution. During the program, participants will engage in lectures with constitutional scholars, discussions with fellow teachers, and scholar-led visits to historic sites including Mount Vernon, Gunston Hall, and a monument tour.

In order to prepare for the program, Fellows will complete readings about our Founding exploring the question "How did the Founders define liberty?" Attending teachers will receive a certificate for 25 contact hours.

Fellows will be selected based upon their leadership in their classroom and profession and dedication to educating their students about the connections between politics and economics in America.

Teachers must apply online by March 26, 2012. More information and an application can be found at www.BillofRightsInstitute.org/Founders-Fellowship-2012.

The Founders Fellowship Program is made possible through partnership with the Foundation for Economic Education.

# # #

ABOUT THE FOUNDATION FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION
The Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), one of the oldest free-market organizations in the United States, was founded in 1946 by Leonard E. Read to study and advance the freedom philosophy. FEE's mission is to offer the most consistent case for the "first principles" of freedom: the sanctity of private property, individual liberty, the rule of law, the free market, and the moral superiority of individual choice and responsibility over coercion. For more information visit www.fee.org.

ABOUT THE BILL OF RIGHTS INSTITUTE
The Bill of Rights Institute, founded in 1999, is a nonprofit educational organization. The mission of the Bill of Rights Institute is to educate young people about the words and ideas of America's Founders, the liberties guaranteed in our Founding documents, and how our Founding principles continue to affect and shape a free society. For more information visit www.BillofRightsInstitute.org.

Actress and playwright Kim Russell was an adult when she finally got to know her mother, who died when Russell was just 2 months old.

Her father, Bernard Knighten, never spoke of his first wife, Luana.

"He never shared stories, never said I looked like her, unless prompted to by my aunts," says Russell, author of Tuskegee Love Letters (www.tuskegeeloveletters.com).

Eventually, though, he shared with her some letters he and Luana exchanged as young newlyweds during World War II. Bernard had been a Tuskegee Airman, one of the first 15 pilots in the pioneering all-African American flying squadron based in Tuskegee, Ala. Before its creation in 1941, blacks were not allowed to fly in the military.

Bernard was 23. In letters to Luana and his mother-in-law, he's cocky, funny and clearly smitten with his beautiful wife. Luana, 21, was a bright and educated stenotypist from St. Louis, discovering a completely foreign way of life in the Deep South.

"This Tuskegee is the dirtiest place in the country," she wrote to her mother. "You have taught me that everything in the world was nice and clean, or at least being around you, you have made things seem so, and it really hurts to find out that life isn't really like that."

Mostly, though, Luana's letters reveal a kind, brave young bride trying not to worry too much about her handsome husband flying over German artillery in Africa.

"It must be an awful shock to receive a brief telegram telling you the one person you love most is gone and that you will never see them again," she wrote Bernard after learning a friend was missing in action. "Please honey, see that I won't get one of those telegrams."

For his part, Bernard worked to keep his letters light.

"My bed is quite uncomfortable and I can't sleep, thus I dream of you all night long," he wrote to Luana. "I miss the sleep but thinking of you is better than whiskey or vitamin pills. Hmmmm, I'd better change that to just vitamin pills."

Russell compiled the letters her father had shared into a readers theater play. Her dad attended a performance.

"He was tickled," Russell recalls. "He laughed at the right places."

Four years later, after he died in 2000, he had another surprise for her: hundreds more letters he'd saved from his 13-year marriage. It was the best inheritance she could ever have hoped for, Russell says.

"Growing up, I had a wonderful, loving family, but I felt different, like an orphan or an adopted child, because I never knew my mother," she says. "When you lose a parent at an early age, what does that make you?

"I am so grateful my father saved all of those letters and I encourage anyone who's lost a loved one to write their story, save their diaries and letters, blogs or videos. I know my mother now - she was an actress, a photographer, a dreamer - and I absolutely adore her. I see so much of me in her."

About Kim Russell

Kim Russell is an arts administrator, writer, and performance artist best known for her one-woman show, "Sojourner Truth." She has a bachelor's in theater and mass communications and a master's in business. She's currently working on a book incorporating many more of the letters she inherited. To see Bernard's TV debut as a comedian on BET ComicView at about age 70, visit www.jaybernardcomedy.com.

Senator Chuck Grassley made the following comment about the tax reform proposal put forward today by the Obama Administration.

"The President's proposal for business tax reform is disappointing for its lack of substantive leadership, especially considering the importance of tax reform and tax certainty in getting America back to work and keeping America competitive in the global economy.  The President's proposal is overly vague with the exception of demagogic political proposals, like those related to aircraft and oil and gas depreciation rules.  Instead of a campaign document, and one that isn't a credible plan of action, American workers need and deserve leadership from the White House for a tax code that will encourage economic growth and job creation."