Dallas, Texas is the birthplace of the Junior National Association of the Deaf. A group of conscientious deaf adults, headed by Mervin Garretson, Executive Director of the Council of Organizations Serving the Deaf, Marvin Rood, West Virginia School for the Deaf, Dr. Byron B. Burnes, California School for the Deaf in Berkeley, and the late G. Dewey Coats. Missouri School for the Deaf, got together at the 1960 Convention of the National Association of the Deaf to lay the foundation of the present Jr. N.A.D. The primary objectives were to stimulate national effort among educators of the deaf and the deaf to bring out the best that deaf youngsters are capable of performing–a collective effort towards their maximum total growth through involvement in motivation-conscious programs. Washington, D.C. was the scene of the history-making First National Convention of the Junior N.A.D., May 8-12, 1968, on the campus of Gallaudet College, the only college for the deaf in the world offering courses in Liberal Arts. One hundred and twenty outstanding deaf teenagers and their adult sponsors from schools for the deaf throughout the country responded to the call for the first national sharing of ideas among America’s deaf youth to maximize American life for all deaf people. Succeeding convention dates: April 15-19, 1970 at Gallaudet College and August 23-27, 1972, at the National Technical Institute of the Deaf, Rochester. New York. Indianapolis, Indiana on November 14-16, 1968, ushered in the first regional workshop ever staged for and by deaf youth of America. This was the “Mid-Western Deaf Youth Leadership Demonstration,” chairman by 17-year-old Melinda Chapel, which drew students and their sponsors from 24 Midwestern residential and deaf schools for the deaf. Others in attendance included teachers and other personnel from schools for the deaf throughout the United States and Administrators from the U.S.Department of Health, Education, and Welfare; Gallaudet College; the National Technical Institute of the Deaf, and the National Organizations Serving the Deaf, plus others not directly connected with the program who possess a genuine interest in the maximum development of the deaf youth of America.