District IX Report
Colorado / Kansas / Nebraska / North Dakota / South Dakota / Wyoming
Vice President
Mark T. Smith Vice President 14632 W. 50th St. Shawnee, KS 66216 Tel.: (913) 568-4347 E-mail: [email protected] District IX Web site: www.amadistrict-ix.org
Associate Vice Presidents
- Max Hansen, 1909 Wisconsin SW, Huron, SD 57350
- H. Michael Harrington, 6112 Ashton Ct., Ft. Collins, CO 80525
- Fred Hildebrand, 4015 Somerset Circle, Casper, WY 82609-3161
- Nathan Lancaster, 3597 S. Kendall Street, Denver, CO 80235
- Troy Lapp, 3419 Heartwood Drive SE, Mandan, ND 58554
- Travis McGinnis, 8027 W. 81st Circle, Arvada, CO 80005
- Don Moden, 410 Hart St., Salina, KS 67401
- Jerry Tuttle, 15578 S Navaho Ct., Olathe, KS 66062; E-mail: [email protected]; Tel.: (913) 254-0967
Frequency Coordinator
Steve Mangles c/o Radio Service Center, 918 S. Sheridan, Denver, CO 80226
Webmaster
Jim Shaw 7945 Newman St., Arvada, CO 80005; Tel.: (303) 421-1738; E-mail: [email protected]
Vice President's Message
WOW! Am I ever excited about 2005! In less than 30 days, I have contacted each associate vice president (AVP) and all other official District IX volunteers, which include Contest Board members. As a result, I am pulling together a great team for the district. I still have some contacts to make, but we are certainly making progress. I believe critical to the success of District IX will be strong leadership from our AVPs.
I want to share with you a letter I wrote to each existing AVP outlining my thoughts as to the three major areas of responsibility for their positions:
"First, with your input, I want to divide the district so that you can reasonably manage your area. Beginning with our January Executive Council (EC) meeting, I will provide you with the agenda and ask for input from you and our members. As soon as the draft minutes are released following our EC meeting, I will provide you with the results of votes on critical AMA issues.
"Second, since you would be the 'eyes and ears' for District IX, I hope that you will be attending area club events and posting any newsworthy articles and pictures to our Web site. In turn, I will use this as a basis for my monthly AMA article.
"Finally, I look to your leadership to let me know when my physical presence is needed or desired. With your support, I want to attend at least one event per state per year. Naturally, this will be dependent upon my time and budget restrictions.
"Assuming you concur with these job responsibilities, I would like you to E-mail me with your current address, telephone, and E-mail so that I can accurately reflect your personal data for the AMA monthly article."
Now for the biggest news: we have a District IX Web site! It is www.amadistrict-ix.org. Please look at what our webmaster Jim Shaw has built for us. Please let Jim or me know your thoughts. This will be our chief means of communications and I hope you will take advantage of the power of the Internet. A big note of thanks is certainly due Jim, for without his expertise we would not have our Web site. Thank you, Jim!
Magnificent Mountain Men (MMM) — Club History (from Don DeLoach)
I received a warm invitation from Don DeLoach, the president of the Magnificent Mountain Men, Inc. (MMM), Colorado's only FF-exclusive club. Don provided a brief history of the club that certainly bears sharing with District IX.
"We have a rich history in Colorado dating back to roughly 1950. At that time, we were known as the Martin Model Masters because most of the members were employees of Martin Aircraft Co. in Denver.
"In 1967, the name was changed to Magnificent Mountain Men. Immodest, yes, but as the song says, it is hard to be humble. Several of our members have represented the United States on World Championships teams. We have in our ranks many national record holders and national champions and have hosted at least five former world champions at contests on our field. Two of our members are members of the Free Flight Hall of Fame and one is a member of the Society of Antique Modelers Hall of Fame.
"Currently our club has approximately 40 members. We are unique in that our focus is on flying instead of meetings and club politics. We have unlimited access to 35 square miles of treeless prairie just outside of Denver, so we love to fly.
"We have eight monthly contests between April and November, two major AAA meets in July and August–September, and two indoor contests in early and late winter. We average an official flying event once a month, but we only have a business meeting once a year. We just held this meeting in early December 2004, and it was a great success.
"We finalized our flying schedule for 2005 and set a date for our annual awards banquet (January 29, 2005). Free Flight is alive and well here on the front range of Colorado! We are planning a special event for September 3–5, 2005. It is the 40th anniversary of the Rocky Mountain Free Flight Championships (RMCC), undoubtedly one of District IX's oldest meets."
Forty years is certainly worth celebrating! I plan to attend and I encourage other District IX clubs that have special events to celebrate to let me know so that I can share your good news in this column.
That's it for this month. Until then, fly safely and most importantly, have fun! Keep in touch.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
