History of The Ronald Reagan Lecture Series

Patricia Phillips originally proposed the Ronald Reagan Lecture Series to the Loudoun County Republican Committee (LCRC) is response to a call for action by then LCRC Chairman Glen Caroline after the 2008 Election Results.  At the time, Patricia had been chairing the Speaker Search committee, an ad hoc committee of the LCRC charged with bringing speakers of interest to the routine LCRC business meetings.  The proposed lecture series addressed the frustration of the speaker search committee to have access such to dynamite speakers but only offer for them to speak for 10 to 15 minutes.  The first lecture was a Birthday Celebration on Feb 6, 2009 in South Riding with Grover Norquist, founder of American for Tax Reform, with over 100 people in attendance.  Phillips was organizing a 100^th Birthday celebration for 2011, but LCRC officials squashed the project fearing it would unfairly favor Phillips, in an anticipated challenge for the republican nomination for state senate.   The Lecture Series was resurrected by Pete Fagan in September 2011 with Kate Obenshain as the speaker.  Years later, in July 2012, the Reagan Committee requested the Loudoun Republican Committee to disassociate the Ronald Reagan Lecture Series.  Under the leadership of LCRC Chairman, Mark Sell, the motion was approved by the LCRC Executive committee in July 2012.    Chris DeFransicsi, Treasurer of the Reagan Committee at the time, prepared the official documents to submit to the State Corporation Commission as a nonprofit corporation in Virginia.  Six months later he completed the lengthy application processor the IRS 501(c)(3) application (Jan 2013).  After 500+ days official notice came from the IRS that the application was accepted.  This change allowed the lecture series to collect cash donations at the door without tracking individual names.  This greatly helped the financial status.