Contest to name newsletter drew

huge interest among AAC members

Participation by the AAC's members was crucial to the successful debut of the Beacon.

A naming contest held earlier this year produced 41 suggested names, from 20 current AAC members. The difficult task of picking a name fell to the Board of Directors. Board members did not know in advance who had submitted each suggested name.

When all the votes were counted, the winning entry was the Beacon. It was submitted by Roberta MacDonald. If her name sounds familiar, Ms. MacDonald is the AAC's state representative for North Carolina.

When she was notified of her winning entry, Ms. MacDonald said, "I want to take this time to thank all of you for finding my entry 'award winning. (The Beacon) just seemed very appropriate."

Ms. MacDonald is a reunited adoptee, who was born in New Jersey. In her professional life, she is president of Computer Magic Services, Inc.

In addition to her work with the AAC, Ms. MacDonald chairs the North Carolina Coalition for Adoption Reform. Active in adoption reform since 2000, she managed to successfully pass legislation in 2007 allowing adoption agencies in North Carolina to act as confidential intermediaries. Ms. MacDonald said her legislative goals in 2009 for adoption reform in North Carolina are to:

• Refine the confidential intermediary program to allow siblings and other family members of a biological parent to search for an adult adoptee.

• Allow agencies to search for other family members, when a birth parent is found to be deceased.

• Look at the possibility of opening up retroactively sealed birth certificates prior to 1945, when birth certificates were sealed.