Adults must continue to learn. The accelerating pace of cultural change has made today's knowledge and skills tomorrow's obsolescence. A society that makes its educational investment almost entirely in children and youth is on the way to becoming obsolete and is reducing its survival chances. To promote the cause of lifelong learning, we need to ban together to form a regional lifelong learning association. Much remains to be accomplished; for instance, in our region--Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas--53.3% of the population does not have a high school diploma. Yet an ordinary person has to read many things at the high school level. In 1958 Burton Clark wrote that the constitutional status of adult education (1) is permissive rather than mandatory, (2) is a part-time occupation, (3) does not have separate plant facilities and fixed capital, (4) "catches the eye" first from economy-minded groups, (5) has to be sold to other educators and the public as a necessity, and (6) depends on state and federal aid. We have made some progress, but financial stress in cities and states is having a negative effect on the status of adult education. In advocating adult education programs, power will come from organization. (CSS)