Pictured: John Knapp, President and Gary Burgess, Director

INSTALLATION DINNER FOR 2008

By Gary Burgess – Photo by Shirley Burgess

The Installation dinner was held at the Texas Cattle Company on 16 January 2008.   I would like to take this opportunity to thank the 2007 Board of Directors for their assistance during this past year.  It makes it so easy to look good as a president when you have a Board of Directors such as I have had, to support you.

I would like to thank John Knapp for handling the parades, and for stepping in when needed to run the membership meeting and contributing with very worthwhile ideas for the club.

I would like to thank Richard Kerston for performing what I consider a difficult task as secretary.  I would like to thank Milam Chrisman for his devotion as treasurer these past years and for a job well done.  And again a big thanks to our board members of last year, Paul, Margaret, and Linda who pitched in with ideas, heading up committees, and acted as a sounding board for me so that my ideas wouldn’t be too far out of line as to what our club expects.

This past year has been very exciting for me to be part of our organization.  We have accomplished a few tasks that I feel will benefit the club in years to come.  The new ideas that we have tried in relation to fund raising were, I feel, successful and can be built on in the coming years to be very beneficial to the club.  Our new meeting place in the auto shop is a big plus for the club and along with the club library I would like to thank John and Susan Knapp for their continued hard work.

We were saddened this year by the loss of Al Coltzau and Phil Lawson.  Those guys made a lot of good memories for this club.   We’ll miss them.

As you may have noticed in the newsletter, there have been a number of changes for the 2008 Board of Directors.   Our new president is John Knapp, vice president is Ray O’Connell, and Linda Kerston will be our secretary as well as our treasurer this year. Paul and Joanne Blackburn are directors.

I would like to make an addendum to the special thanks as printed in the newsletter to add Bud Sargents name to the list--thanks for the time and effort on the club trailer.  This was my fault his name didn’t get mentioned.  I hope you can forgive me for this one mistake in two years as your president.   I would like to take this time to thank the membership of our club for giving me the opportunity to serve as president for these past two years.  Many times I have mentioned how much I have enjoyed it.  Part of the enjoyment comes from helping serve and give back in some small way for what I have received since becoming a member of this Antelope Valley Region.

I have enjoyed the tasks that we have been involved in and the time spent together.   My thanks to everyone for the help you have given me, for listening, becoming involved in our activities and events, and for being there when I had questions that needed answers.

It is always hard to do, and maybe not quite right, to mention any one individual so I am going to pick out two tonight to give a special thanks to.   Ardith has been there for me and has been so much help for these last two years I just want to express my thanks to her again tonight.  Thank you Ardith!

The other person that I will mention is Shirley. The club has been very fortunate that she was there to help me for this past two years, otherwise my duties as president wouldn’t have looked as good in review.   Shirley is my proof reader, sounding board, adviser, navigator, encourager, and after 48 years of marriage still the person I love.  Thank you Shirley!