Who’s Brenda J. Elliott?
Brenda J. Elliott, an author and historian, is the formerly anonymous blogger known as “B Merry” and “Procrustes” who created and maintains both RezkoWatch (RW) and TheRealBarackObama (RBO).
Prior to launching RW in January 2008, Elliott contributed to SourceWatch (SW) as the citizen journalist known as Artificial Intelligence beginning March 13, 2003. She created and contributed to hundreds of SW articles.
Elliott won an award from Project Censored for her November 18, 2006, SW article, Operation FALCON, which was published as #6 “Operation FALCON Raids,” Top 25 Censored Stories for 2008. Submitted articles (approximately 700 to 1000 per year) are juried for selection by faculty, students and community members at Sonoma State University.
Historical Research and Publications
Early in 1988 Elliott joined the staff of the Orange County Historical Society (now the Historical Society of Central Florida) to conduct research and assist in the creation of exhibits for the Orange County Historical Museum (now The Orange County Regional History Center). In January 1990 Elliott co-authored the Florida Black History Educational Outreach Package for Florida schools with Michelle Alexander. In conjunction with James C. Clark, then Associate Editor of the Orlando Sentinel, in February 1990, Elliott helped produce a series of articles for Black History Month.
While on the Orange County Historical Society staff, Elliott conducted and authored a seminal archaeological, architectural, and historical survey for the State of Florida Division of Historical Resources. The survey was published in September 1990 as the Orange County Black Communities Survey Report on the Black communities of Seminole County, historically a part of Orange County.
Elliott was honored for her work when she was named one of the “Intriguing People of 1990″ in the December 1990 issue of Central Florida magazine:
- As an historian for the Orlando Historical Society, Brenda Elliott digs into Central Florida’s past like a woman possessed. “I’m a zealot. I never eat lunch and the library throws me out when they close.” She spent two years chronicling black communities in Seminole County and discovered a lost city. Goldsboro would have been the third oldest black community in the nation had the white power structure not dissolved it in 1911.
In 1991 Elliott left the Historical Society to conduct similar surveys. She successfully completed nine more Central Florida projects over the next three years for the cities of Eustis (2 phases), Orlando, Venice, St. Cloud, Sanford (part two of the Orange County Black Communities Survey), Inverness, Leesburg, and Lady Lake. Elliott also prepared several National Register Nomination applications for individual historical sites and structures.
Elliott conducted research in June 1991 for the Orlando Downtown Development Board Archaeological, Historical, and Architectural Survey Report for DRI and in June 1992 for the Disparity Study for the Orange County Interlocal NWBE Consortium for Joyce A. Savage and Associates.
Elliott conducted independent research for a number of articles on Florida history: Winter Park’s historic Black community, Hannibal Square, in October 1988; on the Mellonville settlement for the Sanford Historical Society in May 1989; and on Swedish immigration to Sanford in December 1990. She delivered academic papers before the annual Florida Historical Society meeting: “Truck Farming in ‘Historic Orange County’, 1880-1920″ in May 1991; “Aaron Jernigan: Alleged Frontier Vigilante” in May 1992 (published in the Florida Historical Quarterly’s ‘Proceedings’, Spring 1993); and “Florida’s Cedar Industry: Revelations from the Dixon Company Scrapbooks” in May 1995.
Elliott researched and wrote A History of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office for the ”Sesquicentennial Yearbook” in August 1994. Elliott co-edited Florida Cattle Frontier. Over 400 Years of Cattle Raising published in 2003. It was a reprint of The Proceedings of the Florida Cattle Frontier Symposium, 1845-1995 co-edited with Florida historians Joe A. Akerman, Jr., and Joe Knetsch, and Cecil A. Tucker II of the Florida Cattlemen’s Association and Florida Cracker Cattle Association.
In 1996 Elliott’s book, Best of Its Kind. “Since 1795.” The Incredible American Heritage of the Dixon Ticonderoga Company, a comprehensive history, was published for the 200th anniversary of the Dixon Ticonderaga Company of Heathrow, Florida (now a subsidiary of FILA).
Oriental Medicine
Elliott attended the School of Complementary Medicine in Oviedo, Florida, for the spring 1996 semester. Elliott transferred in fall 1996 and attended the National College of Oriental Medicine (NCOM) in Orlando, Florida (now the Florida College of Integrative Medicine (FCIM)) until spring 2000. In November 1997 NCOM was the first Florida school accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (ACAOM). FCIM is approved by Florida’s Commission for Independent Education to “award the bachelor degree in professional health studies, master’s degree in Oriental medicine and the doctor of naturopathic medicine degree.”
Elliott was first certified in November 1999 as a Diplomate in Acupuncture with the National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM). She renewed her NCCAOM certification in 2003 and 2007.
Elliott was licensed in June 2000 with the title Licensed Acupuncturist in New Hampshire, the first year that acupuncturists were licensed in the state. She renewed her NH license in 2002, 2004, 2006, and 2008.
Education
Elliott graduated in 1981 from the University of Maryland (Overseas Division) with an Associate Degree. Studies focused on history and German language and culture. She graduated with honors in 1982 from the University of New Hampshire with a Bachelor Degree. She attended Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, school year 1982-1983 with a graduate scholarship in history studies.
Elliott also trained in resource management while employed as a civilian for the U.S. Army overseas.
What’s RBO?
RBO is a volunteer public service project that was created as RezkoWatch in January 2008 and continued as RBO in July 2008.
This blog is not associated with any organization or political party and does not receive contributions or financial backing from any sponsor.
As with our earlier blog, RezkoWatch, we offer serious news reports/opinion and original research about Barack Obama, who was inaugurated January 20, 2009, as the 44th president of the United States.
RBO emphasizes issues that the national mainstream media have suppressed or greatly ignored.
RezkoWatch Articles
All articles orginally posted at RezkoWatch have been imported and can be read here at RBO.
Comment Tips
All comments at RBO are moderated. RBO’s policy is to delete offensive comments the first time, spam rate the commenter a second time, and black list the commenter if there is a third time.
Comments accompanied by a commercial link will not be posted and will immediately be identified as spam.
If you have commented with a link to your blog, RBO will check your blog for content, and to determine it is not a scrape or commercial site, before approving said comment.
Copyright
© RBO. All rights reserved. You may NOT use this work for commercial purposes without explicit permission from the author and blog owner. Commercial purposes includes blogs with ads and income generating features, and/or blogs or sites using feed content as a replacement for original content. Excerpts are permitted if credited and are not a replacement for content. Full content usage is not permitted. All materials contained on this site are protected by copyright law and may not be reproduced without permission.
Credit
Credit Brenda J. Elliott and RBO (http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com). Thank you.
