Rough Rider Association News

Update - December 2006

During the period of time since the Reunion was held and the Rough Rider Association was formed and Officers elected in Rock Island the Association Officers have been in a transition period transferring records from the Reunion Committee to the Association and looking into many of the issues and concerns raised during the business meeting.

Here are some of the things we are working on and looking forward to completing as soon as possible, many before the end of the year. 

• The incorporation of the Association in Illinois, including tax-exempt status
• Posting of various Reunion pictures taken by many of you and submitted to our Webmaster
• A general updating of the website including a more complete TAPS listing as a result of information submitted to us by a number of you
• The creation of the RMA PX (we may come up with a better name later), which will offer various RMA artifacts, both genuine and created ones, for sale on the Website.  Among these items will be a complete set of yearbooks from 1942-1973 on CD’s that were created by our Historian, Gene Shalander
• A financial audit of the Reunion and Association accounts which will detail assets and liabilities and current balances.  This audit will be conducted by the Association Treasurer, Jerry Feitler as of year end and a report will be submitted to the President, Jack Gwynne, and made available to Association members after February, 2007.

 Now, with the establishment of the Rough Rider Association it is time to promote the founding principles and objectives of the Promotion of Alumni Friendship, the On-going Development of the Alumni Network, the Management and Distribution of Alumni Communications and Information and the Leadership to Co-ordinate Reunion Planning.

 With these principles and objectives in mind we are calling out to all Alumni to become active in the Association and in conjunction with this calling we are looking for individuals to assume leadership roles of committee chairmen and volunteers to served on these committees in support of their specific objectives.

The committees and some of the general responsibilities are outlined below:

 REUNION COMMITTEE

• Responsible for determining where and when the next All-Class reunion will be held
• Determining manpower needs and qualities to complete all the tasks involved in the planning process

RMA COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE 

• Responsible for the creation and semi-annual distribution of the Rough Rider Newsletter
• Rough Rider Association membership recognition
• Locating alumni not currently in Roster
• Maintenance of RMA Roster
• Maintenance and data verification for TAPS listing

RMA MEMORIAL COMMITTEE 

• The determination of a fitting memorial to maintain the legacy and memory of RMA and its association with the City of Aledo and our friends therein. The primary focus of this committee will be to fully explore the presentation made by Ronn Jutkins at the business meeting in Rock Island which is erecting a Teddy Roosevelt statue, on horseback, somewhere in Aledo. Ronn will Co-Chair this committee with the help of either an Aledo official or member of the Mercer County Historical Society. He will ,however, need a lot of assistance in accomplishing this task.

The Chairman of each of these committees will report directly to Association Vice-President Gary Weaver. You are encouraged to contact Gary directly, as well as any other Association Officer if you have any questions. You will be able to contact any of the Officers through a Website link or the Roster. The above committees are addressing areas of concern that need to be resolved quickly and is not a complete list of what we will eventually need.

Return to Association News