Executive Vice President Report - 2009/12
Mark Smith - [email protected]
Hi folks and Merry Christmas! I certainly hope you have been good this year and Santa has placed some cool radio-controlled (R/C) stuff under the tree for you.
I want to catch you up on some activities which have kept me busy this summer.
Kansas City, Missouri, was privileged to host the SkillsUSA National Leadership and Skills Conference (NLSC), where 14,000 youth competed in various vocational events ranging from heating and air conditioning to developing web sites. With businesses, unions, and industry associations participating, SkillsUSA provides an opportunity for youth who concentrate on vocational trades to demonstrate their talents and make contacts for potential employment.
Nearly every hotel room in the Kansas City area was booked by this event, which encompassed every square foot of convention floor space. As luck would have it, AMA volunteer Joyce Hager’s brother was a judge at the computer venue and told Joyce she could have the spare floor space for an AMA booth.
We jumped at the chance. Joyce drove to Kansas City and we set up our tabletop booth for the youth. Good flying buddy Darrell Watts helped us by staffing the flight simulator. I flew indoor helicopters and Joyce handed out AMA literature for two days, doing what I like to call “planting the seed.”
With thousands of participants and spectators, activities went on throughout the day — which even included some motorcycle jumping on the street!
Plans are underway to have a presence at the event next year. Those kids sure liked seeing and talking about model airplanes!
The Sodbusters Jumbo Fly-in was held in Wichita, Kansas. My good flying buddy Walt DeFrees and I attended the fly-in this past July. I have attended this event in previous years and always come away from the weekend with fond memories of great times with modelers from the area.
This year was special. I had the honor of recognizing the numerous contributions that Jerry Shumaker has made to the modeling community. Unfortunately, Jerry and his close friend John Newman were in a traffic accident and Jerry was hospitalized. I presented the award in his honor at the close of the event.
I'm pleased that both John and Jerry are well now. About a month after the fly-in, John was able to make the presentation to Jerry in person.
Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.
