I am a nurse at a nursing home and my Mother was a resident there for 5 years.

The nursing home had a Hat Contest for their residents for Easter 2004. My Mother was the Grand Marshall of the Easter Parade so I decorated her a hat to wear. This hat was full of netting, flowers and small Easter eggs. The colors in the hat matched the many colors in the dress she wore.

Several of the workers at the nursing home and family members decorated hats for the residents to wear in the Easter Parade.

One hat really caught my eye because it was not your typical "Easter Hat". One of the workers, Connie Poston, decorated a hat in red and purple with lots of feathers on it. I thought it was a neat hat and kept talking about it and showing it to other workers and families.

I had a young lady working with me as a nursing assistant. She told me since I loved hats so much, I should join the Red Hat Society. I didn't have a clue so I asked her to tell me what she knew about it. All she could tell me was, her Mom belonged to one in NC and you had to be 50 years old to join.

I went home that day and started trying to find out about this Society. I called the Chamber but they only knew Anderson had red hat ladies but they didn't know anything about it.

I saw a red hat in the window of the Berry House in dowtown Anderson so I called them but they weren't sure of how you could join a Society. They did give me the name of a lady that was with a group of red hat ladies. I contaced the lady and was invited to a luncheon to see if I was interested in joining.

The next week my aunt and I attended a luncheon with these ladies. They were all very nice to us but they didn't say much, not even to each other.

I was 50 at the time and the youngest lady in this Chapter was 79. All these ladies did was say hello, eat lunch and went home. I decided then, this was not for me yet.

On my way home, I kept thinking and talking to my aunt about those pretty hats and hw much fun it would be to dress-up like that.

I got on the computer when I got home and looked up the Red Hat Society and WOW, I saw where they could have fun. I made notes and got all the info together I could. I contacted my aunt, my best friend since 8th grade and 2 more friends and told them about my idea to start my own Chapter. We agreed to dress in purple, put on a red hat(except my best friend - she was 49 and had to wear pink and lavendar) and meet the next week at Ryan's Steak House to form a Chapter.

We met on June 5, 2004 and discussed the things we would like to do. We had each lady to write down a name they would to have for our Chapter. We voted after seeing all the names and we decided to become The Rosie Cheeks Chapter of the Red Hat Society.

As we were about to finish our meal, another group of Red/Pink Hat ladies came in for their gathering. One of the ladies in this Chapter was a cousin of mine that I had not seen in years even though we only live a few miles apart. We talked and made pictures together.

The next day we registered with Red Hat Society so we would be offical and then we were ready to have fun!

A couple of days later, I ran into my cousin and her friend again at a Red Hat Yard Sale. I invited this cousin and her friend to visit our Chapter the next time we met. They did and she became our Vice Queen. Her name is Awone Rector and she is the best Vice Queen in the world.

When we got together in July, one month later, we had 25 members and had so much fun meeting new friends and sharing info with each other.

We continue to get together every month and we keep having fun.

I continue to collect all kinds and colors of hats, especially red and purple. Donna Whitt, Queen Mother