Carolina Military Academy
An Alumni Association
July 2011 Newsletter
THE GUIDON
Volume 3 Maxton, North Carolina July 2011 (Quarterly) Number 14
The President Corner
Mike (Bart) Davis - President
Davism@rcgov.us
803-695-1349
The Col. Leslie C. Blankinship
Memorial Award For Excellence
by Randy Jennings
The 1st Annual Col . Leslie C Blankinship Award For Excellence was presented in memoriam to Coach Clyde Parrish at the CMA Memorial Service in the Hall of Heroes in Myrtle Beach SC during the CMA 2011 Annual Reunion.
The award ceremony was conducted by Prof. Harrison McCraw (CMA'63) who was one of Coach Parrish's students and players, and awarded to his daughter Margaret Parrish Ledford and her husband by another CMA student and player, Frank Sossamon. Many of the Coaches former players and students were on hand to eulogize what some call the winningest coach in NC football history. Coach Parrish’s career spanned more than 40 year in both Football and Baseball. Coach Parrish was not only celebrated for his football career but also for his unselfish dedication to his academic students. He was one of the earliest recruiters and faculty members of Carolina Military Academy in Maxton NC. He was very instrumental in bringing not only superior athletes but academic students to the newly formed NC military academy in the summer of 1962 and during his time at CMA. He was the 1st Athletic Director at CMA, he also taught Sociology, Economics, and World History at the school. Coach Parrish will long be remembered by his athletes and students for his leadership and teaching skills. He was the driving force behind many of his students that went on to exceptional college and athletic careers.
My congratulation to the family of Coach Clyde Parrish.
I know that this newsletter is a little long in coming, and we apologize for that, but work schedules sometime get in the way of our CMA duties. As you all know I lost my Mother last Friday and I have spent more time in court in the last two months than I have in a long time, mainly because the current political climate and shortage of trained judges. But so much for excuses. Since we have not heard to the contrary, I assume everyone got home safe from our great reunion in Myrtle Beach.
Unfortunately we have lost two of our CMA cadets since the reunion. As you know our friends and classmates Ken O’leary and John Myers passed away shortly after our reunion. We are so glad that John was able to make it to part of our reunion. You can visit their “In Memory” pages on our website by clicking on their photos below.
As you can tell by the many comments left by our classmates these gentlemen were well liked by the members of the association. They will truly be missed by their classmates. We are in the process of setting up a Memorial Fund to honor not only these but all of our lost comrades and you can read about our plans later on in this newsletter.
We are also working on setting up the CMA Alumni Association Advisory Committee, you can also read about it later in this newsletter.
We have selected a date for the 2012 CMA Annual Reunion next year in Myrtle Beach. The date will be May 4,5,6, 2011. Ivan has again given us the low low rate of $59.00 plus tax for the rooms. We have also reserved the Hospitality Suite for next years event.
Keep in touch and visit our website often for news, announcements, and photos.
Mike.
As you can see by the article in the Presidents Corner we are beginning to lose more and more of our cadets. It has been recommended to me by some cadets that we start a “Memorial Fund”. This is a great idea, one cadet said that we should just take the money for flowers, memorial donation out of the bank account of the Alumni Association. That is fine but where does the money come from to replace what we take out?
I have listed a few questions below that I would like to pose to the association and then we will revisit these questions when the Advisory Committee is formed.
> How do we fund the Memorial Fund?
> How much do we spend on each lost comrade or faculty members?
> Do we follow the request of the family and make a cash donation or do we send flowers?
> Who will represent the Association at the funeral or Memorial Service?
As you can see, there are a lot of questions when setting up a fund like this, it is not as simple as “Just Take The Money Out Of The Till” we will replace it later. I am of the belief that we need to set aside a portion of our reunion ticket each year to have money available to fund the memorial fund, That is only one good idea but leaves out the classmates that for some reason do not attend the reunions. We do have money in the bank that we use each year to pay for the reunion (until we collect from the classmates that are attending, we also use a portion of the reunion ticket for the hospitality room, food and mixers for the hospitality room, postage, gifts, awards, certificates, we purchased the T-shirts out of that account and when we collected the money back from the classmates we paid back the money for the T-shirts and postage for classmate that wanted T-shirts that were not coming to the reunion. But if we start taking funds out for this and that without a way to pay it back we will be broke in no time.
Solutions could be that we request donations from those of us that can afford it each year or we budget a little each year out of the reunion cost to go into the “Memorial fund”. We could also start charging a dues each year and put a portion of that into a “Memorial Fund.” There are many questions to ask and many different opinions, we will also put this question to the advisory committee but I would also like to hear from some of our cadets and faculty members.
And while I am on the subject, ideas and task like this take volunteers to accomplish. What happens if something happens to me? Think about it and I am sure that we can find someone to help. RJ
Memorial Fund by Randy Jennings
Advisory Committee by CMA Board Of Directors
The CMA Board of Directors has set up an advisory committee, this committee will be made up of pervious board members and invited faculty. These committee members will serve at the pleasure of the current board of directors. Committee members will serve as long as they are willing, or until they submit their resignation. There is no term limit for these members nor is there any minimum or mandatory number of members.
The board will call on these individuals to offer their advice on decisions that the board must make from time to time. The decisions will not be made by the committee but the CMA board will use their input and advise to best serve the association. I have sent out an official invitation to these individuals, along with instructions they will need to carry out their duties. Their duties as described above will be mainly to act as a sounding board for the current board of directors. They will need to have a computer and be registered on our website, and have simple computer skills. All communication will be through the CMA Secure Webpage's website at www.carolinamilitary.org and will be in the Admin Forum. Communication in this forum will be restricted to only members of the Board of Directors and the CMA Advisory Committee. Any decisions coming from this group will be in email or newsletter form to the members of the association, depending on the urgency of the decisions.
Members will be given instructions on how to use the forum and how to make comments on questions on this forum. The questions and discussion will only be discussed this way to be fair to everyone. Each comment from a member will be visible to every member of the committee. Email or telephone lobbing will be discouraged.
It is the proposal of the board of directors to request and receive advice from the committee thus not being the only voice in decisions that have to be made in the daily operation of the association.
As I said before, I have sent the official invitations out to the committee.. I am waiting on their responses, and will announce the members when the responses are received. We will from time to time need additional committee members as other members resign. If you have any desire to help with this committee, please email Randy Jennings and he will put your name on the waiting list.
If anyone has any questions about the workings of the board or committee, We will be glad to accept comment at a forum I will be starting in the Cadets Forum under the General Discussion topic on our website.
Thank You,
Your Board Of Directors
We discussed this at the CMA Business meeting at the reunion and I thought that I would see if we could make some headway with this topic.
It is very important that we stay in touch with all of our classmates and faculty members, even those that do not have email addresses. So with that said, I am looking for someone that would be willing to take over that responsibility. I would of course be happy to make a written copy of our newsletters and announcements that could be mailed out to those members. I could also supply you with mailing labels to accomplish this task.
I do not think that it is necessary to send all information to everyone everytime unless they are attending our reunions. What I would suggest is that we send out letters with an enclosed post card that could be sent back to the association either saying Yes, I would like to continue to receive CMA information or No, Stop sending me CMA Information, or here is my new email or usmail address please put me on the CMA email or usmail list. This would be an attempt to bring more email registered members on our website or to set up a mailing list for those who want to continue to receive information from CMA in written form. If we send these inside a 1st class mail letter, if it is sent to the wrong address it will be returned to us and we will know that it is the wrong address and we can cross it off of our list.
With all of the current duties of the CMA Board of Directors we are just not able to take on this additional task. Remember that if we do not get some of the cadets to take on some of the responsibilities of the association, it just will not all get done. I look forward to hearing from a helping hand. 843-450-5800 or rjennnings2553@gmail.com.
Non-Email Cadets by Randy Jennings
Thats All Folks!
Cadets Update by Randy Jennings
Salem Van Every - Got a skype call from Salem the other day and he is in the Watauga County Hospitality in Boone NC, he continues to suffer from a staff infection from a previous hip surgery. Let's all wish Salem a speddy recovery. It seems like he has been in and out of the hospital for a while now. You can send a private email to Salem by going to his cadet profile and sending him your thoughts in the email box at the bottom of the page.
Robert Asire - Got and email from William Averre CMA 1965/66, he had gotten an email from Salem. Robert has been at Duke Hospital in Chapel Hill for a few months trying to get his strength up to get on the lung transplant list, I heard from Robert that he had attained his strength goal and he was on the list. Salem and William reported last night that Robert had been granted a lung trasnsplant and had come throught surgery without any complications and is in recovery.
Lets all keep Salem and Robert in out thoughts and prayers over the next few weeks, just like Salem you can send your private thoughts and prayers to Robert by going to his cadet profile and emailing him in the email box at the bottom of the page.
I am also going to start a "Get Well Soon" topic in the "Cadets Forum", go to the CMA Secure Web Pages at www.carolinamilitary.org and click on the Cadets Forum on the top left side of the page.
More news as we get it.
This is just a copy of the proof of the award. ops someone forgot to make a close-up of the actual award. sorry - Randy
