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January 2006 Konza Sailor Page 5 |
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Secretary’s Notes |
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After ten years of avoiding the nominating committee or their avoiding me we collided this year and I am now your Secretary. My first involvement with the Blue Val-ley Yacht Club came in 1964 when as a Manhattan High School Student I was charter junior member of the club. At the time I was racing a very slow Flying Junior or very slowing racing a Flying Junior. After college, law school and the United States Navy I returned to Manhat-tan and began building and sailing wooden trailer boats. It was not until 1995 with the launching of our twenty-foot wooden yawl that I returned to the yacht club fold.
Since returning the club my major interest, besides sailing my boat, has been working with youth sailing programs. With the assistance of the board of directors we established Sea Scout Ship 5074 in 2000. That same year the yacht club sponsored and I served as Commo-dore of the first Kansas Sea Base which was held on the club grounds. This program taught sailing, canoeing, rowing, motor boating and board sailing to youth from through out Northeast Kansas. The program has contin-ued since then. In 2001 I served as the senior adult leader for a group of scouts from Troop 74 who traveled to the Bahamas and sailed the Sea of Abaco.
In addition to sailing the Sea of Abaco I have had the op-portunity to sail such areas as the Door County area of Green Bay, San Francisco Bay and the Intracoastal near Pensacola, Florida. Last summer Ned Gatewood and I sailed his Compac 19 across the Gulf Stream from the Miami area to Bimini in the Bahamas. The Chalk Air pilot who died in crash in Miami harbor around Christ-mas was the same pilot who flew my wife and daughter to Bimini to meet Ned and me.
My wife, Suzanne, is a fourth grade teacher at Woodrow Wilson Elementary School and enjoys riding in sailboats. Our son Harrison is a sophomore at Washburn University and was a charter member of Ship 5074. He is a hot stick on the helm but does |
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not get the same joy from sailing as I do. Our daughter doesn’t care much for any boats but beautifies any beach with her presence.
Despite not yet having mastered Microsoft publisher it is my goal to eventually equal Bart’s newsletters. I also want to use my position on the club board to work for excellence in everything that the club does. The club’s social life is in my opinion key to participation and increased participation will unlock benefits for all members |
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Henry Otto receiving a Commodore’s Award from Commodore Diane Barker |