President’s Message

President’s Message
The year is half over. Time passes so quickly. Now is a good
time to reflect on those items we want to make sure we
accomplish in the last half of this year. I would hope that one
of those is making plans to attend the IWCS’s 75th Jubilee Year
Annual Meeting in La Grange, TX, October 30 – November
04, 2022. President Elect Mark Duff and his team have been
working very hard to make this meeting worthy of being
our Jubilee Meeting. Mark sent me pictures of some Texas
ebony, Ebenopsis ebano (see below and on the back cover) and
800-year-old bristlecone pine, Pinus aristata (page 29), that he
and others have traveled a great distance to collect. The Texas
ebony will be put on the on-site saw mill and the bristlecone
pine in the wood auction. Both are great finds and increasingly
difficult species to acquire. If for no other reason than the
ability to acquire these species, and others, it would be worth
attending this meeting.
If you have not previously voted in our election, now is the time to do that. See your Mar-Apr issue for your
ballot. If you are an online only member, you can email your choices to Alan Curtis (abcwoods1@gmail.
com) or Suzana Radivojevic ([email protected]). We have excellent candidates running for offices of
President Elect and Vice President. Look on our website for pictures and biographies of all the candidates.
A couple of membership reminders follow. Last year we had to discontinue multiple year memberships. The
Secretary/Treasurer still receives an occasional payment for a 3- or 5-year membership. These are no longer
available, and it makes for extra work to return the money over and above the one-year membership.
We are transitioning all members to have their memberships begin in October. This will mean that for some
members the Secretary/Treasurer will send a dues renewal notice with the pro-rated amount of your dues
to October. You will receive another dues notice in October for the full year dues amount. This change is
cumbersome until most of our members are converted to the October date, but it represents huge time and
labor savings for our Secretary/Treasurer. Thank you for your understanding and patience as we make this
transition.
Earlier this year the Board of Trustees approved the appointment of Dr. Chuck Ray as Secretary/
Treasurer. Dr. Ray phoned me and after much consideration informed me that he could not proceed with
the appointment and resigned. The Board has approved the appointment of Patti Dickherber as our new
Secretary Treasurer. Christine Henning and Judy Miller have sent all the Secretary and Treasurer files and
computer to Patti. I want to thank Christine Henning and Judy Miller for the great deal of work that they
did in their past positions.
In case you have not visited our new website I encourage you to do so. Art Lee and Whitney Wilson have
done a fantastic job of freshening our website. Art has taken on the task of learning Word Press which is
what our new website is constructed in. He is looking for someone
to help him with some details of Word Press he or Whitney
are not familiar with. If you have some experience or interest,
please contact Art Lee directly. We are looking forward to more
improvements in the website in the future as our finances and
manpower will allow.