Joint Council

Joint Council was held at the Methodist Church in Festus. As usual the Methodist women served a very nice meal of salad, cranberry chicken, green beans, rice, homemade rolls and desserts. Alpha Iota hosted the event.

Gently used books and stuffed animals were collected to be turned into Book Buddies. Cathy Hippert reported on the Book Buddies. She said it started in May by giving 50 to Operation Home Front. These Book Buddies go to military families children. Each month she has been called for more Book Buddies. Since she started this project, she has donated over 3,000 Book Buddies. She says as long as there are garage sales and thrift stores, she will continue to create the book buddies.

AND the winner of the 50/50 was ... Christie Wiltz. She donated the $79.50 to "Missouri Night 2013.

"There were greetings from the State President, Bev Teri. She spoke of the conference in Springfield, MO on April 13, 14, and 15th. On Friday during the conference there will be a auction to help raise money for Missouri 2013. She also mentioned her program teachers helping another teacher. The idea is to help a new teacher feel welcome by listening or helping out in many different ways. We want to keep them in the profession.

The guest speaker was Jack Jordan. He is a retired administrator from Mehlville School District. He is very active on several teacher retirement boards. He discussed many legislative issues that may affect teachers. Especially the Representative from Cape Girardeau, Jason Crowell. He plans to present several bills to the legislators that may hurt teachers and affect PSRS. We may need your phone calls, letters and emails if he should present these bills. We are blessed to have Sherri Talbot. Most of the information Mr. Jordan talked about we have already heard from Sherri or Peggy Cochran.

The meeting was called to order. Leadership Achievement Awards were presented to the following: Alpha Iota - Mary Tidd, Beta Delta - Nancy Woods, Beta Pi - Nancy Strain, and Gamma Tau - Pam Penrose. We are blessed to have Pam represent us. One person was supposed to receive a 20 year pin. We also learned Gamma Tau will turn 20 next year. The meeting was adjourned after we all held hands and sang the Delta Kappa Gamma song.