SECRETARIES PLAN EVENTS TO CELEBRATE ANNIVERSARY

Earlene Sokolowski, CPS, is the Cape Girardeau County Circuit Court Division III clerk in Jackson and chairwoman of the Girardot chapter of Professional Secretaries International.

Carol Ryan Cannon, CPS, right, a secretary at Testing Services at Southeast Missouri State University, explained the GRE test for graduate school to Alicia Scott, assistant athletic director at Southeast.

Members of the Girardot Chapter of Professional Secretaries International have two things to celebrate this week: It's the chapter's 50th anniversary and Professional Secretaries Week.

On Wednesday, chapter members will meet for breakfast at the Drury Lodge in Cape Girardeau to celebrate Professional Secretaries Day, said Donna Heuer, president of the local PSI chapter and an administrative assistant in the diapers division at Procter & Gamble.

Also on Wednesday, members will meet at noon for the 10th annual Briefing for Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, sponsored by the Harrison College of Business in cooperation with the Training and Development Office at Southeast Missouri State University.

The briefing, "Developing Competencies for the New Millennium," will be held in Glenn Auditorium at Dempster Hall.

On Thursday, chapter members will celebrate the chapter's golden anniversary with a dinner at 6 p.m. at Drury Lodge. Helen Marshall Miller, a charter member of the local chapter, will be honored at the dinner, Heuer said.

PSI is open to office professionals employed as secretaries or administrative/executive assistants, individuals who earned the Certified Professional Secretary rating and business educators.

"We have representatives from all types of businesses," Heuer said. "We have secretaries to bankers, lawyers, educators, and now we have a few medical secretaries in our membership."

PSI aims to recognize the secretarial profession and promote through ongoing training and education, she said. There are some 700 chapters worldwide, and about 40,000 members in the United States.

Heuer has been a secretary for "about 31 years," she said, and has watched the profession grow and develop.

"It's changed tremendously," she said. "My first job was as a legal secretary. We had carbon paper" and used typewriters.

"Now I'm in a manufacturing facility and we have electronic mail. Everything's done on the computer."

In addition to the changes in technology, she said, secretaries' daily duties have changed.

"I find that there are things that I do that typically were done by management level previously," Heuer said.

Carol Cannon, a secretary in the Testing Services office at Southeast Missouri State University, agreed.

"I have more independence in my job, more leeway to make decisions," Cannon said. "A lot of things that used to be done by my boss now I do."

And of course, computerization has made a world of difference.

"Some young people probably don't know what carbon paper is," said Cannon, who has been a secretary for 19 years.

Cannon and Heuer are both Certified Professional Secretaries. To attain the rating, applicants must pass a two-day exam covering finance and business law, office systems and administration and management.

"In some businesses, especially in the cities, it means a higher pay and maybe a better chance for a more involved job," Heuer said.

The rating "is a big part of PSI," she said.

The test is offered in May and November at Southeast Missouri State University.

"We have a real good turnout every time of applicants sitting for the exam," Heuer said.