The announcement was front page news in the May 27, 1926 issue of the Powell Tribune.

A new organization was coming to Powell just 17 years after the town was officially founded on the Shoshone Reclamation Project. That organization — Chapter P of the P.E.O. Sisterhood — is about to celebrate its 100th year in Powell.

As noted then, the organizing effort of Powell’s Chapter P was led by Mrs. Katherine T. Johnson of Thermopolis, assisted by Mesdames Boulware, Robertson, Bell, Jones, Allen, Greever, Van Arsdel and Parker, officers of Chapter D, Cody.

The Tribune informed readers of the day that the P.E.O. Sisterhood “is one of the oldest among women’s organizations in America. It was the second national college sorority to be formed in the country, having been organized in 1869 at Iowa Wesleyan College, Mount Pleasant, Iowa.”

The article continued, “As in the case of other pioneer sororities, chapters were formed both in and out of college. The local chapter expects to be chartered at the state convention at Greybull June 5, 1926.”

Charter members of the Powell Chapter were Leta Evans, Doris Y. Walter, Sarah A. Clark, Cecilia H. Hendricks, Freda M. Hubbell, Eshter V. Andren, Alice A. Werts, Ethel B. Shult, Helen M. Morgan, Minnie Watson, Sylvia L. Mills, Amy F. Krueger, Ella Jefferies, Sedona Nelson and Lucy B. McKerney.

A luncheon at Northwest College on May 16 will commemorate the centennial anniversary of Chapter P of the P.E.O. Sisterhood in Powell.