January 2006

Happy New Year, Everybody!
I hope you all had wonderful Christmas visits with your families and some friends, and enjoyed festivities on the New Year's weekend. And I hope you managed to do a little flying during the period. We didn't have a picturesque "white Christmas," but neither did we have some of the really bad weather that hit other parts of the country. We are dry, to be sure, and we'll have to be very careful about burning before the grass starts growing in Spring. Even without snow, our Winter landscapes in the Ozarks are very beautiful. We have a variety of shades of brown in the oaks, and golds in the dormant grasses. On sunny days, this is set against crystal blue skies; on cloudy days, there are shades of silver, blue, and gray for background. The Ozarks become the winter home of those great flyers, the Bald Eagles. We are hosting four of them on our farm - one adult and three immatures.

We drove to Florida to visit one of our sons and his family for an early Christmas, birthday and graduation all at once. It was a wonderful time, much too short of course. While there, we went to see Kermit Weeks' Fantasy of Flight Museum. It is one of the best collections of restored aircraft. The tour takes you through the restoration workshops with explanations of problems and techniques in rebuilding "basket cases." On another day, we flew from Peter O Knight, in south Tampa, to Lakeland with Craig in his father-in-law's Piper Arrow. There was a T6A being refueled at the FBO in Lakeland. It's a beautiful aircraft. Later, instructor and student returned to the airplane and we watched them taxi out to the runway and take off. Our grandson, Kyle, age 5, is showing interest in airplanes already.

The checklist...	Toward downtown Tampa	On final at Lakeland	Lakeland Tower
T6A fueling on FBO ramp	The Piper Arrow	Student starts engine	Taxiing to runway
Photographs by Sue Kalhoefer

Since coming home, there's been two chances for me to fly when the weather was VFR on my days off. Once, we just flew locally and looked over the home area. But this weekend, we flew to Horseshoe Bend for lunch. Bill Newton flew down with us in "formation," and Jerry Luna and Len Ahrnsbrak flew over and met us there. A very nice way to celebrate my birthday. We are starting to think of Sun 'n Fun again.

Christmas Party
Our December meeting was our annual Christmas dinner party. We do a lot of special things during the year, but the Christmas meeting is always the nicest way to wrap up the year. It gives us a chance to acknowledge each other's talents and contributions to the benefit of the whole Chapter. You are a great bunch; we are a great bunch! Henny did a good job of presiding over her first meeting as President. She stood a little taller—on her box, that is.

Pretty table decorations.	Christmas dishes at the buffet.	Doc recognizes Ron for his special contributions to the Chapter.
The business meeting after dinner.	Henny takes over the podium.	Standing tall—now you can see her!
Photographs by Henny Christensen & Sue Kalhoefer

Ron White brought Ted Businger to the meeting so we could all meet him and acknowledge the gift of the aviation library. If you had a chance to visit with him, you recognized his long fascination with aviation. Ted told us he intended the materials he donated to be the "seed" for ongoing development of the library. He encourages us to continually add new reading material to the library. In this way we will have a "substantial" and comprehensive library in about five years. So, if you have books of aviation fiction, biographies, histories, and photographs; textbooks on learning to fly, navigation, safety, and weather; directories and catalogues; bring them for the library.
We also took the opportunity to acknowledge the "glue" Ron White himself is to our Chapter. Stop and think of all he does to keep us together. Thank you, Ron, for everything.

Ted Businger shares his interest in aviation with Fred.	John and Jean Zook	Pat and Margi Gates
Photographs by Sue Kalhoefer

We want to acknowledge that John and Jean Zook made it to the Christmas meeting. Jean has made remarkable recovery from her health problems of this last year. We know that any trip is a long trip for her, but she looked lovely. John is looking good, too.
Keep on flying, John!

We welcome new members, Pat and Margi Gates (by the way, Margi is pronounced with a hard 'g'). They would have been with us sooner if I had not misplaced the little slip of paper that was given me with their name and address on it. I was supposed to send them the newsletter. But I finally found it again, they received their newsletter, and they came.

Gift from Wendell Bailey
Ron called us all back to the hangar for breakfasts on the first Saturday after Christmas, earlier than first announced. Wendell Bailey and his son, Mike, and his family were present. Wendell presented the Chapter with a check for $1000 to be used toward the hangar.

Wendell Bailey, with son Mike and grandchildren, present a check for $1000 to Ron White for the hangar.

Photograph by Fred Kalhoefer

Several times now, this family has shown its interest in the Chapter and in the airport. We thank you heartily, Wendell. For those who don't know, Wendell Bailey has been a longtime Willow Springs businessman, and he served a term as Missouri's State Treasurer.

January Meeting
Henny has announced a time schedule for the meeting and workday next Saturday: 8:00 a.m. - arrive at Ron's hangar to set up for breakfast; 8:30 "or thereabouts," - eat breakfast. The new hangar isn't presentable yet for eating. Ron will cook breakfast. Members can bring fruit salads, potatoes, anything "side-dishy" to add to Ron's menu. 9:30 - EAA meeting in Ron's hangar.

We will work on the Chapter hangar after the meeting. The major emphasis right now is to finish the dry wall. If you have dry wall tools, come prepared to work on that. If you are not a dry wall person, there is a lot of clean up to do, so bring a broom, dust pan and buckets with which to move litter out. Ron will be working on the septic hookup. He will certainly need some help with that. Every bit of help is appreciated.

Now that we have a library, we need shelving. We can use donations of shelving materials.

Our Chapter roster is out of sync with the National roster. Henny requests that all Chapter members who are National members please bring their current National membership card so we can get the number correct for the roster. Only National members will be shown on the roster for HQ. We are allowed to have Chapter-only members at our discretion—and we have several—but they are not eligible to hold office, vote, or fly Young Eagles. They are, however, very important to the life of the Chapter. This has been made clear in our discussions at meetings from time to time.

Also, January is the month in which we pay Chapter dues. This is required by HQ. They do not correlate your Chapter dues to the month in which you pay your National dues. The National portion of Chapter dues are remitted to HQ by the end of January.

Remember, if you are flying in to the meeting, to park in the paved ramp area. The dirt along the runway is not yet firm enough to taxi on. Also, Tom has been seeding and fertilizing the area where we usually park to thicken the turf for Spring, so we don't want to mark it up with tire tracks now.

Member News
Charles Lee Ward, son of Charlie and Anna Belle Ward, was called back to the hospital in St. Louis on January 5. They had a new liver for him. Please pray that Charles Lee will have the stamina to undergo this surgery and recovery, and that this will be a healthy liver. The rest of the family needs your prayers, too. Late word is that Charles Lee came through the surgery very well. We are thankful for that.

Phyllis White has had to have surgery on her other knee for a torn meniscus. Her doctor said she knows what to do (i.e., physical therapy). Oh yes, knowing is one thing, but she is understandably tired of the whole routine. We hope, with you, Phyllis, that this will be the last time. You have demonstrated a lot of patience and we applaud you for that.

Invitation
We have an ongoing invitation to visit with Chapter 437 of Jonesboro, Arkansas, at noon on the last Saturday of each month. This is an informal "second meeting" at which they will have lunch, $5.00 per person, except that pilots flying in eat free. It's a grass strip about 2,600 feet long, oriented north/south, located on Highway 18 five miles east of JBR. Henny will give you the coordinates and contact information at the meeting. They are trying to "spark interaction between chapters" and others who are interested in flying.

We Celebrate

Buzz Thunderbee

January Meeting Announcement