W3R-US Chair Kim Burdick recently appointed Nicole Guggenheim Yancey of Yorktown, VA to serve a three-year term on the board of directors. She is Honorary Counsel of France in Virginia, Emerita. She has been actively involved with the work of W3R-US for many years and was the originator of Yorktown Days.
Yancey is a recipient of the French Legion of Honor, a prestigious award – founded in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte – that’s handed out to only about 3,000 French citizens annually. This honor was bestowed on her by Andre Maman, a professor of French civilization at Princeton University.
In 1976, Yancey got her start in Franco-American relations by volunteering at the bicentennial celebration of the American Revolution in Yorktown. Later, she helped coordinate the building of the French Memorial there.
Yorktown, of course, is the site of the decisive battle of the Revolutionary War – in which the Americans got much-needed assistance from France.