President Vice President Treasurer Secretary Chaplain Members at Large

John Christianson James Taylor Chris Taylor Ed Cartwright Nathan Green John Flournoy

Red Lemke

Greetings to all of you at this special time of the year. I hope that Santa has taken care of your Christmas wish list to your delight and satisfaction and that you look forward to the New Year.

Your PRHA is moving forward on a number of venues, the primary one being the reunion in Montgomery, Alabama, April 17-19, of this New Year. Please highlight the dates on your calendar and plan on joining us for another great reunion. I just spoke with Len Shults, our host, and he is deeply involved in the planning stages of the reunion program. We are still in the process of deciding upon our choice of hotels. Once we evaluate the proposals and complete the hotel selection and other associated details, we will be sending out the reunion information and registration data to the membership.

One of the major discussion topics at the reunion will be that of the PRHA memorial. You might recall that, during our meeting at the 2006 reunion in CT, you authorized the establishment of a memorial. Then, at our 2007 joint ARA/PRHA reunion in Louisville, you decided that you would like to have a couple of proposals, including design and cost factors, for our 2008 reunion. Our memorial committee, Bob Gerstenberg and Red Lemke, is working towards that goal, however, they have encountered some complications in meeting the time-frame of the proposals. Several questions come to mind-----Where to site the memorial? How much to spend? What do we want the memorial to depict? How do we fund this project? To date, we have had very little input from the membership and the committee really needs your thoughts and ideas. So, put your thinking caps on and come to the reunion with your suggestions and support.

As I mentioned earlier, we were working on a PRHA coin. I am happy to report that we now have a great coin available to the membership. It will make its debut at the reunion. John Flournoy has done a fantastic job in making this happen as he had an integral part in the design of the coin and worked directly with the company that is producing it. Thanks, John.

You are probably wondering how the elections turned out. I’ve asked Rick Sheets, our elections manager, for the results. According to Rick, the tally shows that each member of the current board has been re-elected to serve another two-year term. When I asked each of the board members if they would accept a nomination for another term, each replied in the affirmative. With the elections now concluded, I think that this definitely shows your support of the current board and the direction that it is taking the organization. On behalf of the board, I thank you for support and confidence and I look forward to serving as your president for another term.

Help us keep the memory of the HH-43A/B/F and its mission and accomplishments alive. A great many people owe their lives to this helicopter and to the men who flew, maintained, and supported them. Let’s not let the world forget.

John Christianson, President, PRHA

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