Jeff Birks, who is a newly elected member of the Junior Achievement Board, related how he first became involved with the program when Junior Achievement last visited Sertoma four years ago. Jeff told us about his experiences in the fourth grade and talked about the volunteers and funds needed.

JA volunteers go into the classroom 5 times with very well prepared lesson plans and give 45 minute presentations. The teachers are very flexible about scheduling and spend time preparing their students for the visits. They also prepare the students to participate in Exchange City.

One of Ileana’s primary purposes in visiting us besides to encourage volunteers was to encourage us also to support their efforts to take the entire fifth grade from Brainerd to this special event. The students spend a great deal of time preparing in the classroom and then travel to Maplewood to participate in a day of actually running a city with businesses, elected officials and a realistic hands on experience. Since all of the students are housed in the same building at Forest View, it is a matter of all or none and an expenditure of about $11,000 more dollars.

Junior Achievement was founded in 1910 by Horace Moses who also founded the 4H. He saw the need for a life experience in the basic economics which will get students ready for the business world. In 1990 the program went from after school into the classroom.

This past year 134 classrooms in the area were covered with a total of 3,000 students participating. About 6 million K-12 students in 120 countries were a part of JA last year with 122,000 of those in Minnesota. Illeana took the opportunity to thanks all of the Sertomans in the room who have participated in the past.

A Chicago native whose family bought a resort near Grand Rapids after vacationing up here, Mark graduated from Deer River and married his wife Pamela about 22 years ago. They have two grown up girls and one boy in high school. He enjoys fishing, hunting, golf, camping, woodworking and drinking beer. He was brought into Sertoma by either Gary Walters or Dave Burggraph but mainly because of community involvement.

Mark’s most embarrassing moment was a story about a hockey practice and his son but his best remark was, "I am most embarrassed when I wake up and look in the mirror."

• Mike Boen has a new job at Sertoma. President Clausen has appointed him official bad guy. This means he gets to ring the bell when the Sertomans are too loud.
• Charley Bartels, Deer Fly Pied Piper
• Almost all of the bankers and mortgage people and even a builder or two paid big fines today when they got into an advertising war.
• Brian Lehman—County Commissioner?
• Merle Innes Carney
• Linda Twaddle minnow hunter
• Holly’s Hair Fine—it costs money to change to a more “intelligent” color.