The Armenian National Committee, Western Region, celebrated a year of successes at its annual banquet at the newly-renovated Pasadena Convention Center on Sunday, November 8, 2009. More than 800 activists and donors attended the fundraiser, which drew prominent and senior elected officials and civil servants from the federal, state, and local governments. A powerful speech by ANC-Western Region Chairman Vicken Sonentz Papazian was the keynote address at the banquet. The attorney and volunteer chairman of the largest and most influential Armenian-American grassroots advocacy organization in the Western United States said that it was less than a century ago that the Armenian nation was pushed to the brink of extinction.
