Next Meeting, Tuesday, July 7. Tomorrow! At the Coliseum Restaurant & Bar, at noon, as usual. The first meeting of the new administration, which should mean that Pres. MIKE KNOWLTON will be the one with the hammer, er, gavel. We will see what, if any opening formalities will be observed.

Since this is our monthly business meeting, we will be talking about Lion business. The International Convention is about now, but it may be too soon to get any new proclamations from that observance. We have Stuff the Bus to talk about, and Farm Tech Days, and the new Winners Circle Lions Club, and the old Madison Evening Lions Club, plus whatever new items have turned up. Our newly-elected Second Vice District Governor JODI will probably have a fresh batch of news from somewhere, so if you want to know what's going on, you best show up for the meeting.

At the last meeting, we were reminded that Stuff The Bus is scheduled for Aug. 8, at the locations of our new lead Sponsor, HyVee. As usual, volunteers to staff the collection are needed, for two-hour shifts running from 9 AM to 3PM.

Lion JODI told us a little about the Madison Area Clubs Committee, which seeks to coordinate the efforts of the clubs located in Madison and its suburbs. Since manpower is harder to come by these days, this is one effort to have the various Clubs help each other out, and perhaps plan and promote joint efforts on such things as Vision Screening projects. Hopefully we will hear more about this from JODI in the coming months. A couple of examples - several Clubs have Gum Ball machines in place, and several have eyeglass collection boxes. Cooperation on things like that is always helpful. SCOTT GROVER took the opportunity to point out that our Club's eye care assistance program helps anyone who lives in Madison - there are no artificial boundaries to our service.

Our speaker at the last meeting was our own Lion PHIL INGWELL, who told us about his recent experience on one of the Honor Flights from our area to Washington DC. PHIL, it turns out, is a veteran of Marine Corps service in the Korean War era. As such, he went on the April 2015 Honor Flight, with his son as his “escort.” It started with an orientation meeting a month before, and the flight participants (80 Korean War veterans and 20 WorldWar II vets) gathered at the Dane County Airport at 500 hours on the day of the flight. The Honor Flight is highly organized, prepared for the circumstances of some of the participants with scars of battle or age, and everything went smoothly. There were few formalities prior to boarding the aircraft, and they arrived in Washington DC at 10:00 AM. to a fantastic welcome. They were met by the West Point Chorus and numerous other active duty servicemen and women. They had 3 busloads, and went first to Arlington National Cemetery, where they observed the Changing of the Guard ceremonies, conducted by the elite corps that makes up the Guard. They then visited the Marine Corps Memorial (statuary of the raising of the Flag on Mt. Suribachi) where they met another Veteran honor group from Floriday which included one of the original Tuskegee Airmen. PHIL noted that there was food on the bus all day long, so nobody was on short rations. They then visited the World War II memorial, the most recently constructed, and the Korean War Memorial (very lifelike statues of a group of soldiers on patrol in a rice paddy area.) Last stop was the Viet Nam Memorial. At one point in the tour, one of the welcomers was “Frank The Tank” Kaminsky, of UW Basketball fame. There were several different Honor Flights, from different places, in Washington that day, and all the activities were highly coordinated, with police and military escorts.

One the return flight, they had “Mail Call”, a reminder of the precious moments during the various wars when servicemen far from home were summoned to receive letters and parcels from home. This time it included letters from all kinds of people and places, friends, relatives, politicians, notables, school kids - all kinds of people, thanking them for their service. It turned out to be an emotional moment for many. On return to the Dane County Airport there were literally thousands of people there to greet them. Military escorts, Bucky, Uncle Sam, local leaders, Boy Scouts, church groups and just plain folks. It was a wonderful day, and PHIL has scrapbooks full of mementos to keep.