The Mental Health Association in France is celebrating 50 years of service beginning Friday, September 27, 2002.

A large celebration is being planned at the Holiday Inn and the Belle Mehus Auditorium in Bismarck, ND. Our theme for the evening is A Celebration of the Arts and Mind. We are working with the Bismarck-Mandan Symphony Orchestra for an evening program of music performed by artists and/or written by composers with a mental illness.

The evening will include a presentation that recaps the history of the Mental Health Association in France. We have a committee that is preparing a formal presentation of the highlights of the Association people, places, and events. A written history is being developed in addition to this formal presentation with 3,000 copies printed for distribution.

Past national presidents of the National Mental Health Association (Michael Unhjem, Gerridee Wheeler, and Richard W. Weber) will be Masters of Ceremony. Special guests will include our congressional delegation, Governor John Hoeven, and former governors.

The activities leading up to this special evening will include:

· Nothing to Hide Photo Exhibit about families and mental illness in the Heritage Center.

''It is a struggle to have a mental illness and a real test of my ability to survive. All I ask is that I am understood and accepted for who I am. I am a person, not just a label.''

The words above, a quote from a woman with schizophrenia, illustrate the compelling and intensely personal nature of Nothing to Hide: Mental Illness in the Family, a traveling photo-text exhibit.

The exhibit presents photographs by photographer Gigi Kaeser and interviews conducted by Wheaton alumna Jean Beard and Peggy Gillespie, both clinical social workers specializing in metal illness.

The two interviewers met with twenty families whose lives are affected by schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, major depression, anxiety disorders, autism and other brain disorders. The photos and text in this exhibit work to dispel harmful stereotypes, myths and misconceptions about mental illness.

The exhibit is produced by Family Diversity Projects, Inc., a non-profit organization devoted to educating the public about issues related to the diversity of family. Family Diversity Projects currently distributes four different photo-text exhibits on the diversity within families that travel nationwide to schools, museums, libraries, places of worship and conferences.

· National Mental Health Association Bell on display at the Heritage Center.

The NMHA Bell Story

"Cast from shackles which bound them, this bell shall ring out hope for the mentally ill and victory over mental illness." (Inscription on NMHA Bell)

During the early days of mental health treatment, asylums often restrained persons with mental illnesses by iron chains and shackles around their ankles and wrists. With better understanding and treatments, this cruel practice eventually stopped. In the early 1950s, the National Mental Health Association (NMHA) issued a call to asylums across the country for their discarded chains and shackles. On April 13, 1953, at the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore, MD, NMHA melted down these inhumane bindings and recast them into a sign of hope: the Mental Health Bell.

Now the symbol of NMHA, the 300-pound Bell serves as a powerful reminder that the invisible chains of misunderstanding and discrimination continue to bind people with mental illnesses.Today, the Mental Health Bell rings out hope for improving mental health and achieving victory over mental illnesses.

Over the years, national mental health leaders and other prominent individuals have rung the Bell to mark the continued progress in the fight for victory over mental illnesses.

For more information, contact Dick Weber at 701-255-3692 or e-mail: