| The Doyel Reunion Report 2003, Pensacola, Florida May 18, 2002 Dear Shipmates, Another great reunion with Tracer in the fore front. It was the largest to date (except for last year at the memorial in Newport which had 341) with 147 crew members and 111 spouses/guests (258 total) attending the banquet Saturday night. There were 76 for the pre tour of historic Pensacola on Wednesday the 14th. On Friday 245 of the group toured the National Museum of Naval Aviation and had lunch at the Mustin Beach Officers Club. The association made a donation of $250 to the museum. Of all the attendees at the reunion, approximately 25% were attending for the first time. There were three military "guests of honor" at the banquet. Two Third Class Petty Officers and one LDO Lt. and his wife. Although I arranged their attendance, I did not get a chance to talk with them for details of their military duty or other background information. Although Tracer had the largest number (21) of personnel present we ended up tied with USS Skywatcher (AGR-3) with 20 each due to the counting procedure. This anomaly will be corrected at the next reunion (2004) to be held in Philadelphia, PA. which is Bossert's home ground. The dates will probably be around the same time as usual (between mid May and mid Jun) depending on hotel availability, etc. A vote was also made to hold the 2005 reunion in San Francisco, CA to commemorate the 50th anniversary year that the first AGR was commissioned. The Jeremiah O'Brien (a working Liberty Ship) is based there and efforts will be made to see if it would be possible to have the ship get under way for a pre tour event. The time frame for this reunion is up in the air and could actually be any time of the year depending on the O'Brien's schedule and availability. Harry Miller gave a financial report and again the association is in the black. It was voted to give another $1,000 to the USS Massachusetts (BB-59). One thousand was also given to them at the Newport reunion.To date it has proved to be a good investment. The reunion cost $16,000 to put on. Again we maxed out the hotel so it looks like future reunions may have to go to larger hotels which can handle large groups and will probably mean increased room and registration expense. This was the least expensive of any reunion to date. The association did not have to subsidies it as it has in past reunions. The association took in approximately $40,000 and spent $37,000 leaving a balance of $3,396. The memorial fund has collected $13,211 and spent $12,877 on the space onboard the battleship. There was an anonymous grant of $5,000 for the fund and $4,298 remains of that grant. The major expense again was printing and postage. Harry sends out 1,187 newsletters four times a year. Not every one gets the newsletters. Depends a lot on dues being paid and good standing. The association has been contacted by over 1,800 former crewmen. Ten ships have more that 100 persons on their individual ship rosters with two or three others in the 90s. Dues are still $15.00 a year and the year runs from 1 Jun to May 31. The fifty/fifty raffle brought in $1,329 for the memorial fund with an equal amount to the winner. I forgot his name but it wasn't a Tracer guy. The hat pins and golf shirts were hot items this year. Since I was hosting the reunion, I prevailed on some Tracer men to help with the registration and sales. Special thanks go to John King , Fred Rush and Roger Padgett. And this was Rush's first reunion. Since the reunion was in my home town, I took the opportunity to have a social hour at my house on Thur night. All were able to attend except Baxter and Sutton whose flights were canceled due to bad weather. They did make the reunion though. I think there was a total of 29. It was a very enjoyable evening and I appreciate everyone coming. Bill Bossert handed out a list of names, a lot with addresses and phone numbers, for subsequent use by Tracer attendees to locate more of our former crew men. It was quite an effort on his part and I really appreciate the effort as the list contained hundreds of names. We had several first timers this year which included, Rush, Bossert, Rittenhouse, Gormley, Hilstrom, Phelps and Johnsen. Repeats included, me, Spillum, King, Padgett, Biggs, Henzen, Coggins, Bayer, K. Smith, Sutton, Nannini, Reid, Baxter and Mann. You notice that there are no pictures with this recap as there normally are. That is because I was so involved I overlooked it and Nell's camera's batteries were down. Those of you that have pictures (digital or otherwise) please send some to me so I can promulgate them and put some in the photo album for posterity and next year. Again thanks for making the reunion a memorable one. Regards, Lee Doyel . Engineering Officer 1961-63 |
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