InCider Press, March 2003, page 5, Pretty (Valentine) Packages

Our chapter is used to providing "pretty packages" and on February 13 and 14, we delivered about 144 of the prettiest musical packages of which we're capable during our $inging Valentine$ campaign. Armed with hours of practice and dressed in our finest Tuxes with boutonnières, our chapter's quartets sang their way across the area from Wamego, through Manhattan, on to Ft. Riley and Junction City, then on to Clay Center, bringing joy, surprises, and yes, even a few tears as we conveyed messages of love from one person to another.

Our packages this year had extra special wrappings, because our presenters were trained by our Master Presenter, Mr. J. Lester Hooper. There is no wonder quartets speak for his services early, because he has that extra flair that make the whole presentation such a pleasure to witness. On two successive evenings, our $inging Valentine$ presenters were given the opportunity to benefit from J. Lester's expertise in making our "pretty package" even prettier. Thank you, J. Lester.

Besides taking extra time to work on their own skills, several of our regular quartets helped other "novice" and beginning quartets with words and notes so that they could obtain approval of our musical leadership. Our Directors, Ken Lang and Don Thomson, coached and helped quartets until they were capable of singing with the flair necessary to make each presentation a "pretty package." We gathered at 7:00 for 5 Thursdays before the 14th to hone our skills and make sure that we knew all the words and notes to our 3 standard $inging Valentine$ songs. With a few personnel changes necessary, we fielded a total of eight quartets armed with smiles, long stemmed roses, candy kisses, and love songs for both guys and gals.

Ably administered by Sondra Nelson at Manhattan Data Systems, who was assisted by Karen

Nanninga and Kathy Wilson, the orders were arranged so that presenters could pick up their assignments and supplies at headquarters, head to the quartet lounge hosted by Helen Cooper and Marilyn Bunyan, pick up their quartet and work themselves out of a job, only to return and start the process over.

Because of early heavy orders, we had to add Thursday afternoon the 13th to our schedule to accommodate some special situations, which are always fun to do. Can you imagine the joy one of our recipients received when she was entertained by five of our quartets during the day. Her husband sent her a quartet for every year they'd been married, and she didn't have to witness a single repeated song! We also sang to some pretty important people of the community, including members of the KSU football coaching staff, at a wedding reception, for a troop deployment ceremony, and the Commanding General of Ft. Riley.

Of course, the day was recapped at our wrap-up party arranged by Mike Sexton and the American Legion. Quartets got to tell of their experiences and highlights of the day and we all enjoyed sharing a great Pizza Party arranged by Sharon Stanfield.

During the evening, we were able to report that by our own statistics kept during each presentation, we had about 2,800 people witness our "pretty packages" during these two days. But the prettiest package? I guess you'd have to count that treasury addition of approximately $3,600 to be the prettiest of all!