Index to Larry Alan Thorne Special Forces Memorial Chapter XXXIII Summer Chapter Meeting
(The Green Berets)

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Summer Chapter Meeting

Knoxville, Tennessee

26-28 July 2013


A note here: If you have come from the Chapter Bulletin Board, you can return to that page by clicking on the link to the left.

Once again our chapter moved en mass to the now famous city of Knoxville, Tennessee and the Best Western Plus motel. And once again our host and hostess, Art and Brigitte McRae, put on a good meeting. It was nip and tuck for awhile wondering if we would have a quorum but at 1300 hours on Saturday, 32 members filled the Team Room for the meeting.

A couple of the members arrived on Thursday just to make sure they had a clear shot at the park platz at the Tangier Outlet in Pidgeon Forge, Tennessee on Friday. Surely everyone knows about Pidgeon Forge and Dolly World. You can take it to the bank that if you don't have a park platz by 1030 hours (the stores open at 1000 hours) you won't get a place to put your car. The whole area fills up in the summer months with millions of cars inching their way along highway 441 and thousands of kids swarming all over the place like locust heading for the wheat fields.

Unlike last year, Ole Man Weather was really kind to us. There was no rain, the thermometer hovered in the mid-80's and the heat-index matched the temperature.

As usual, the members started filling up the rooms on Friday, 26 July. A few of the more affluent members decided to partake the luxuries (jacuzzis, sitting rooms...you get the picture) of the executive suites. The rest of us tossed our kit-bags in our generic rooms and flooded into the Team Room on the 3d floor.

We were supposed to make an excursion into Old Town Knoxville to mingle amongst the locals and sip the liquid refreshments and partake in the local pub fare, but that never came to pass. Oh well. Maybe next year...So sometime around 1800 hours most members drifted off to the various restaurants around the motel.

Then it was back to the Team Room and more liquid refreshments. Someone brought out a couple trays of cold cuts and bread and we lined our stomachs with food to inhibit the fast absorption of the liquid refreshments into the blood stream.

The Team Room was still standing on Saturday which allowed us to have lunch at 1130. The group made quick work of the cold cuts from Patak's Meat Market , watermelon, cantaloupe, chili and an assortment of condiments which was spread across 2-3 tables. Promptly at 1300 hours (1 pm for you Legs), Sid Morgan, our President, slammed the gavel on the table and the Summer quarterly meeting of Chapter XXXIII was underway.
    The chapter officers gave their reports, our President, Sid Morgan, made a couple of announcements and then asked Jim Godwin, Chair Person of the Scholarship Committee, to brief the chapter on the list of candidates for a scholarship. The chapter had originally voted (way back in the dim history of the chapter) to fund three candidates at $1,000.00 per candidate. This year there were five candidates for a scholarship and since the chapter didn't give a scholarship last year, a motion was made to fund all five candidates. A heated discussion ensued about staying at three but after the smoke cleared and the guns and knives had returned to their proper places, the vote was taken. The pros won by three votes and Harry, our Treasurer, issued five checks to the Secretary to deliver to each candidate.
    Next item on the agenda was the voting for chapter officers. Our Secretary, Judy Hines, passed out the ballots and each member present voted for the candidate of their choice. Judy will mail out ballots to all members of this chapter who were not present at this meeting. The ballots will be counted at the Fall Meeting on 18-20 October 2013 and the new officers will be installed at the Installation Dinner that Saturday.

Art McRae will do the initial footwork for the Fall Meeting in Cleveland in October, 2013 but it's hoped those members in and around Cleveland will step forward and help out. Knoxville is about 80 miles from Cleveland and it would be a great help to Art if he had help from those chapter members in and around Cleveland.

Sid Morgan will once again host the January, 2014 meeting in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. At this time, it will be the same hotel we held our last Winter Meeting. Hopefully, we'll have the same Team Room we had last year. Sid will probably look at the last week-end of January because the snows seem to hold off and the bills from Christmas have been paid. All information on the upcoming meetings will be on our Chapter website.

As usual I've added a few photos taken at our meeting in Knoxville.

See you in Cleveland, Tennessee the week-end of 18 October 2013.

Copyright © 1994 Chapter XXXIII SFA. All rights Reserved.
Chapter XXXIII, SFA, The Larry Alan Thorne Special Forces Memorial Chapter
Summer Meeting was created 3 August 2013