International Wood Collectors Society

Greetings Everyone!

Life is full of surprises. It was only in the March/April issue of WOW that I was introducing myself to you as your new President-elect. I was expecting to be in that office for a year to a year and a half learning all I could. Now here it is 6 months later from when I volunteered, I am your new president. I believe I am up to the challenges ahead and I do plan to continue to learn all I can. As I have said before, I take this job very seriously and want to do a good job for you, the members.

One of the first things I want to do as your new President is to thank our last president, Melvin Talley, for all he did for IWCS. He stepped up to the plate and took the office when no one else would. I'm wishing him a speedy recovery from his health problems and looking forward to seeing him at our meetings in the future.

Speaking of surprises. Over the last 3 years I have been cleaning up Manley's (my late husband) collection of wood. I'm not talking about a sample collection, I'm talking about logs, boards, stumps and trailer loads of long leaf heart pine boards. He had his favorite cypress, basswood, maple, butternut, camphor, mahogany, cocobolo, cedar and many more that I won't take the time or space to list. We would take wood to meetings to donate and we would bring wood home. He would also go to south Florida, USA to get different types of tropical woods. Manley had a sawmill and to say he had a little bit of wood is an understatement. It's taken all this time to short it, give it away, sell some, burn the rotten wood, and donate a lot to IWCS for the auctions. I thought I had finally finished that job. Now to the surprise. Working in the shop one day I thought about getting some help to retrieve the things Manley had stored up in the rafters. As I stood looking up I noticed something. The boards he used to put things on had something written on them. Camphor, Cypress, Cherry! SURPRISE! I hadn't finished the job after all. As I get the boards down there is no telling what types of wood I'll find and how many more surprises there will be.

I am hoping that as your President there will be a pleasant surprise with every e-mail, phone call, introduction and meeting I go to.

Thank you for welcoming me as your new President of IWCS

Elaine Hunt