BISMARK—A decade of legal home schooling in North Dakota will be celebrated this Thursday, Feb. 25, when North Dakota home educators visit the offices of their legislators to say “thank you” during their annual Home Education Day at the Capitol.
    Michael Farris, a nationally known constitutional attorney, home school advocate and president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, will speak at the rally scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on the Bismark capitol steps.
    On Friday and Saturday in Bismark, the North Dakota Home School Association will hold its annual statewide convention in the Dakota Ballroom at the Radisson Hotel and Convention Center. Gail Biby, the special events coordinator for the North Dakota Home School Association, said, “we anticipate this will be one of the largest conventions we have ever hosted. Mike is a dynamic, entertaining speaker. We even have registrations from Montana, South Dakota, Minnesota, as well as Manitoba and Saskatchewan.”
    Farris spearheaded the well-remembered February, 1989 “Bismark Tea Party,” when home schoolers flooded the offices of North Dakota legislators with hundreds of tea bags bearing the message: “The consent of the governed for home schooling, too!” On April 7, 1989, Governor George A. Sinner signed a critical home school law, and the rest is history. Farris will speak at the 1999 convention on Friday, at 9:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. On Saturday, he will speak at 9:15 a.m.
    To learn more about the convention, home schooling in North Dakota, or to interview Mike Farris during the convention, please contact Gail Biby at 701-223-4080. For more information about Mike Farris or the Home School Legal Defense Association, call 540-338-5600, or see our web site, www.hslda.org.