Saturday, December 13, 2008

Red Pencil
Newsletter of Watauga County Retired School Personnel
Vol.XI, No.3 December 2008 ntn1066@hotmail.com
December Meeting
Noon, Thursday, December 18, 2008
Deerfield Methodist Church
Cost per meal is $10, payable to Watauga Unit,

NCRSP
Rumor has it that a certain large person who generally appears this time of year in a red suit will be dropping by to visit, along with his number one elf, a familiar-looking fellow whose name is Lairion. He says we can call him “Snowflake.” And The Neighbors, a bluegrass group from Lenoir, will also be entertaining us. We’ll have our traditional sing-along, as well. Because our program is so full, we hope that you’ll make every effort to arrive on time and even early.

N.B. In celebration of Dr. Seuss’ birthday in early March and the Read Across America program which honors him, please bring a new or gently-read children’s book to the December meeting for distribution to Watauga County children through the Santa’s Toy Box Program. Do NOT bring books that have been marked in. On the subject of Read Across America, if you would like to volunteer to read to kids, select an appropriate volume, put the first week of March on your calendar, and call your favorite elementary school.

Please, please, please bring as much non-perishable food as you can to the meeting for the Hunger Coalition. Powdered milk, soup, oatmeal, pasta products, canned fruit and vegetables, ANYthing non-perishable will be acceptable. Don’t forget those medicine bottles, either, and this month, please include all those annoying little plastic bags from the grocery store and Wal-Mart and every other shop in town. We can recycle them!

Very important note: If your caller has not phoned you by the 13th of December, call your caller if you plan to attend. If you change your mind about attending, please call Margaret Sigmon at 264-2036 immediately. As usual, Margaret sends her thanks to her team of callers who generously volunteer their time doing work for our organization. AND, as usual, we are continuing our quest for perfect attendance recognition recipients. Make sure your name is on the list; come to the meeting!

Speaking of volunteering, PLEASE don’t forget to bring your completed volunteer hours form to the meeting. To recap, that’s a book for Santa’s Toybox, non-perishable food and medicine bottles and plastic bags for the Hunger Coalition, and your volunteer hours form for Eula Mae Fox. For your convenience, a clean volunteer hours form is again included in this newsletter and you’ll find a note from Eula Mae, as well.

President’s Message

“You have been injured and it is not wise for you to take this planned trip to Greece,” admonished my doctor. Did I take his advice? No. Do I wish I had? Oh, yes! On our first day in Athens, I had another mishap and spent the remainder of our tour on crutches. With limited mobility, we often took taxis, and the first question from every driver who recognized us as Americans was, “Obama?” By our calculations, eighty percent of the Greeks were in favor of Barack Obama’s winning the vote for the American presidency – they, too, were hoping for a change in our national policies!

On November 5, before the sun had risen, we tuned into CNN to hear the news of the election results. It seemed the entire world was celebrating this amazing victory of Barack Obama. Reporters have been saying that his campaign’s organization is unsurpassed. What an example of “the power of one!”

Thankfully, our thoughts can now turn to the holiday season. The miracle of Christmas has always entered my heart through stories, music and plays. One story that still brings tears to my eyes is A Certain Small Shepherd by Rebecca Caudill, the story of a young boy in Appalachia whose mother dies giving birth to him. Although Jamie grows and develops normally, he cannot talk. When he is about six, he plays the role of the shepherd in the school’s Christmas play. Days later, on Christmas morning, Jamie and his sisters trudge through the deep snow to a nearby church to celebrate with their father, who has been helping to shelter a young family with a newborn child. When Jamie sees the new baby, he rushes home, puts on his shepherd costume, grabs his own Christmas gifts, an orange and a dime, and hurries back to the church. Falling upon his knees, Jamie places the orange near the baby’s tiny hands and for the first time in his life, he speaks clearly. “Here’s a Christmas present for the child,” he says. With wonder and joy, the family kneels with him “and Glory Shone All Around.”

May the joy and majesty of the Christmas season fill our hearts with the belief that even today, miracles can happen.

With warm wishes,

Beth

To receive The Red Pencil by email, please send a message to Nanci at ntn@skybest.com with your name and email address in the message. Indicate if you receive your email in Rich Text or Plain Text, and if you aren’t sure, just say so in your message. By receiving your newsletter on your computer, you’re getting your news within minutes instead of the days required by the postal service AND you’re saving the organization the cost of stamps and printing! It’s the clever thing to do!

2009 State Convention to Be Held in Durham

The NCRSP State Convention will be held March 24-25, 2009 in Durham. If you are interested in attending, please give your name to Beth Carrin before February 12. Be thinking about attending and notify Beth (264-9227 or bethiemae@charter.net) with questions or reservations.

Our 2007 scholarship recipient says, “Thank you.”
Dear Members of Retired Teachers, I wanted to write a small thank you note to express my appreciation for the scholarship I received last year. I thoroughly enjoyed my first year at Gardner-Webb University and I look forward to furthering my studies in Elementary Education. The first education course that I took was an introduction course and I had the opportunity to spend two hours in each an elementary school, a middle school, and a high school. The teachers that I met taught me so much. The high school teacher told me that if teaching was really one of my passions, I will know it as well as my students. Thank you for your generosity and for the opportunity to further my education. May God bless you richly this coming year.

Sincerely,

Anne M. Nick


The youngest retiree in the NCRSP system to receive a benefit check is 46 years old. The oldest is 107! One hundred and forty-five people receiving benefit checks are 100 years of age or older. The NCRSP retirement system recently began paying benefits to one retiree who had 57 years of service with North Carolina, one who had 63 years of service, and one who had 74 years of service (she was 99 when she retired).

In Memoriam

We extend our sympathies to the family of Ruby Michael. In honor of her long service to education, we have made a $25 donation to our scholarship fund.

Watauga Unit of NCRSP Donates Thousands of Hours*
Our members deliver meals, answer phones at church, make blankets for sick children, run errands and act as companions, volunteer in the schools, serve on the boards of almost every organization in this county, answer the phones in our church offices, sit with patients’ families at the hospital, and contribute in a hundred other ways to the richness of life in the High Country. You know what you do – now help me tell our leadership in Raleigh!



Most NCRSP projects and activities are scheduled and carried out during the school year, but Community Participation is ongoing throughout the calendar year and reported at year’s end. Please find your Volunteer Hours Report sheet or use the one in this issue of The Red Pencil and fill it out through the end of December. (You know what volunteer activities will keep you busy in December.)


I am beginning to receive report forms in the mail (at 199 Watauga Drive, Boone NC 28607) from members who know they will not be attending our December meeting. Please do get your form to me one way or another; those volunteer hours mean a great deal to our community and to our chapter.

Thank you for all the hard work you do for NCRSP and for others.
Eula Mae Fox, Community Participation Chr.

*According to statistics supplied by NCRSP leaders, our membership in the state is approximately 12,000 retirees. Last year, those retirees contributed 605,425 hours of community service, representing a value of $11.8 million.

Our oldest member, Katie Jane Peterson, sends her best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Kate, who will be 99 in March 2009, taught in both Tennessee and North Carolina during a career which spanned six decades and all grades, including college. She lives at Appalachian Christian Village in Johnson City, TN but is among the very first every August to renew her membership in the Watauga Unit of NCRSP.


NCRSP Community Participation

Volunteer Hours 2008
Please remember that any activities in which you participate for the benefit of someone else FOR WHICH YOU ARE NOT PAID count as “Other” in this listing, with the exception of family activities. That means the hours you spend with Habitat for Humanity or Project Linus or the Hunger Coalition or tutoring a student or transporting a friend or doing someone’s grocery shopping or attending civic meetings are all appropriate for inclusion here.

Keeping up with the computerized times: our own website

Remember that you can find out about upcoming meetings or what’s happening with your fellow members of our NCRSP unit through our website, http://wataugacountyretiredpersonnel.blogspot.com/. You can even read the latest issue of The Red Pencil there!

Anonymous Member Makes Gift

One of our unit members has made a gift to our scholarship fund to honor all those who provide transportation to our meetings for members who no longer wish to drive. What a kind and generous thought!



Watauga County Unit

North Carolina Retired School Personnel

451 Poplar Hill Dr.

Boone NC 28607

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Christmas Meeting

Next Meeting -Thursday-December 18th
"Santa is coming to town"