St. Elmo News
ANNOUNCEMENTS
Monday, July 25
• Fayette County Home and Community Education Board, 10 a.m., Vandalia Extension Office.
• St. Elmo Lions Club, 6 p.m., Mary Ann’s Restaurant.
Wednesday, July 27
• Royal Neighbors of America, 1 p.m., Phillips Building. Grade school supplies will be collected.
Thursday, July 28
• ExxonMobil Annuitants, noon, Maverick Restaurant, Litchfield.
Alumni Banquet Info
The St. Elmo Alumni Banquet was held the Saturday night before Memorial Day for about 65 years. It originally was held before World War II, but was dropped during the war. Back in the early 1950s, it was started again. Throughout the years, it was in the high school gym, the school cafeteria (for one or two years) and the elementary gym. The last one was 2015.
The St. Elmo Board of Education requested that the banquets not continue to be held at the school the Memorial Day weekend. This year, no alumna offered to be in charge of finding another date and place to have the banquet.
Three alumni – Ward Brady of St. Paul, Minn., class of 1952; and Don Campbell of Davenport, Fla., and Ken Gillespie of Winterville, N.C., both of the class of 1954 – want to organize one for August 2017. A letter from them follows:
Dear SEHS Alumnus: It appears that the alumni banquet as we have known it for years is no more. Gone and over. Finiti.
Ward, Don and Ken are trying to organize something for August 2017
If you want to help, ask Ward, as he is the best one to see the overall picture and will know where help is needed.
Ward is the senior member of the group. He was VP of the Class of 1952 and will serve as CEO of this operation, which generally speaking, is like herding cats. Don and Ken are coordinating the communications and assembling an email list of SEHS Alumni.
Tentatively the date will be the third Saturday, Aug. 19, 2017.
At this writing, everything is very much in flux. The purpose of this letter is to get you to send us your SEHS email list. There will be no USPS mail; all communication is expected to be via email or in St. Elmo area newspapers.
In the interest of our sanity, it would be really nice if you listed you email folks like this:
last name, given name, ladies maiden name, class, email address. If you do Excel or similar, a spread sheet would be fine.
If your last name starts with A through H, send your list to Ken Gillespie: kengillespiecpa@yahoo.com.
If your last name starts with I through Z, send your list to Don Campbell: DCAMPB98@GMAIL.COM.
If you need to send by regular mail, send to Ken and he’ll get Don’s to him: Ken Gillespie, 2500 Royal Drive, Winterville, N.C. 28590; phone number is 262-364-8267.
If you have SEHS friends who don’t do email, please take it on yourself to let them know what is happening.
You might organize with your friends to take this on as a project.
This is our initial effort to get email addresses: Laura Ann Feezel had a list of more than 1,500 names; our current email list is less than 100. Your help is urgently needed! Please send us your lists of SEHS. Sincerely, Ward, Don, Ken.
Women’s Civic Club
Officers of the St. Elmo Women’s Civic Club meet at least once in the summer to plan the programs for the September through May meetings and prepare a proposed budget for the year. Those present at the 3 p.m. July 7 meeting held at St. Elmo Public Library were President Pat Porter, First Vice Lucille Koeberlein, Second Vice Libby Kessel and Third Vice Karen Denning. Secretary Anna Jean Rhodes and Treasurer Liz Stoner were unable to attend.
Rhodes and Mary Jane Mattix earlier audited the treasurer’s books.
Refreshments served were chocolate cupcakes by Denning and punch by Porter.
Plans for the Sept. 1 meeting will be in the August community announcements.
Lions Club
July is an Anniversary Month for the following members of the St. Elmo Lions Club: Richard Lowe, 21 years; Mark Lash, 15 years; Bob Lowe, six years; Rex Reeder, five years; Dave Cox, three years; Max Hollinshead, three years; and Holly Huffer, two years.
The July 11 meeting at Mary Ann’s Restaurant opened with President Dave Maxey leading in the Pledge of Allegiance and Pee Wee Denton leading in prayer.
The club decided on the following theme for this year’s parade – Fruit of Our Labor (Feeding the World).
For more Labor Day Parade information, refer to the city website at www.cityofstelmo.com. Other parade business was discussed as well.
Those present were Dave Cox, Don Crawford, Pee Wee Denton, Max Hollinshead, Holly Huffer, Dan Laack, Mark Lash, Bob Lowe, Richard Lowe, Le Mar Marchman, Dave Maxey, Al Nevergall, Dee Newberry, Rex Reeder, Lloyd Stanley, Bob Wells and Will Williams.
Lunch Bunch
Seven ate at the Lunch Bunch reserved table July 14 at Mary Ann’s Restaurant. They were Pat Porter of Farina, Wayne and Sandra Lovett of Brownstown and Karen Denning, Arlin and Lillian Grobengeiser and Anna Jean Rhodes of St. Elmo. The main discussion was the possibility of an alumni banquet in August 2017.
Library Board
The June 14 meeting of the St. Elmo Public Library District Board was held at St. Elmo Public Library and new officers elected are Tony Koberlein, president; Cathy Arnold, vice president; Amy Denton, secretary; and Connie Kamnick, treasurer.
After the budget hearing, the board approved and paid bills. The board then learned that at the St. Elmo Library, the gutters and backyard need work. Trash cans need holes to drain water and some way to keep animals from turning them over.
July 14 was the last day for summer reading program at the St. Elmo Library and prizes included a scooter and a wagon.
Shelby Electric plans to donate a kilowatt meter to Beecher City Branch Library for patrons to check for effectiveness of appliances.
Wayne Moran reported that some computers are starting to fail. He wants to replace some of the hard drives. The board will replace 10 at this time.
Integrity Electric fixed the lights at Beecher City Branch Library and will be installing a timer to conserve bulb life. The Girl Scout leader and three Scouts painted the swings and watered the garden and plants. JoAnn Evans had to have Polaris help with the receipt printer. Beecher City also has no Wifi at this time. Georgia Evans will be having another book signing for her new book.
Motion by Crawford, seconded by Denton, to allow Kamnick digital access to Fayette County Bank library accounts and motion carried. Motion by Kamnick, seconded by Guy Wegscheid, to add Denton, Arnold and Crawford as co-signers on checks at Fayette County Bank carried.
Motion by Kamnick, seconded by Denton, to contact Timmermann and Co. for audit review carried.
The board voted to adopt Ordinance 2016-3 to levy and assess a building and maintenance tax for fiscal year that starts July 1, 2016.
After the officer election, the board entered into a closed session at 8:25 p.m. to discuss personnel and left the closed session at 9:24 p.m.
The board accepted Billie Enlow’s resignation effective Aug. 5.
Kamnick will write a list of duties and requirements for a part-time library director position, which will be advertised in all the local papers.
Motion by Kathy Spitler, seconded by Crawford, to adjourn at 9:38 p.m., carried.