WEBVTT

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We were back in the '60s, when this...

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when these issues were

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coming to the forefront.

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There were certainly a lot of people in

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State offices and a lot of professionals.

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I mean there were some openly speaking

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professionals around in those days who were

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interested in this. But I think what the

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parents provided... we were a state-wide

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organization. We had no

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bureaucratic or political constraints,

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and we were in a position,

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and we had the sense of urgency.

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And so what we saw is that we had

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a very good working relationship and

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partnership in the '60s and '70s,

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and then it began to get increasingly

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more complex, where we would work

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with members of the Department of Welfare,

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as they called it then, the Department of

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Education, and also the

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rehab unit of government.

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And those were sort of the three main

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ones that we worked with. And we had easy

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access to the commissioners, and eventually

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it would get so they would have someone

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who would specialize in the handicapped or

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in the institutions and all. So we had many

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people we could relate to. And then we had

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the Governor's office. We always kept 

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a liaison somehow with the Governor's office.

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In fact, back when Governor Rolvaag was the

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Governor, we could easily walk in there.

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This was another world, then,

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in terms of how busy people were.

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We could easily almost any day

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walk into he Governor's office.