It was no accident that the Cosmos Club was selected as the location for the evening. In its early years, many of the section's meetings were held at the club under the sponsorship of Alexander Graham Bell, one of the section's founding members. As the years went by, the meetings migrated to other locations in the District and the suburbs. In 1978, the section divided into the present day Washington and Northern Virginia sections. Today's Washington Section comprises the District and surrounding counties of Maryland. But for one evening, members of both sections returned to the place so instrumental in their common history: the Cosmos Club. The demand for tickets was so great that the meeting was moved to a larger dining room to accommodate a capacity crowd of some 115 members, friends, and guests.
The evening was made possible through the generous support of many sponsor s. We of the Washington Section would like to express our appreciation to the following Gold-level sponsors: Dr. Norris Hekimian, Dr. Harold Stinger, and the IEEE Northern Virginia section. We would also like to thank the following individual sponsors: Dr. Saj and Mrs. Yasmin Durrani, Mr. Jerry and Mrs. Elizabeth Gibbon, Mr. Douglas and Mrs. Cindy Holly, Mr. Greg Strutt, and Dr. Margaret and Dr. William Wu. We extend a special thanks to Dr. Robert Powers for sponsoring the evening on behalf of the club.
The final component of the 100-year commemoration will occur in April of 2004 when a time capsule will be buried containing memorabilia of events that happened in 2003. It is our hope that 100 years from now, when the capsule is retrieved, members will take note of what we did and, perhaps, select the Cosmos Club for their 200th birthday celebration.