Phather Phil’s Prayer
GOD & DOG
I look up and I see my God
I look down and see my dog
Simple spelling G-O-D
Same word backwards D-O-G
They would stay with me all day
I’m the one who walks away
But both of them just wait for me
And dance with joy at my return with glee
Both love me no matter what
Divine God and canine mutt
I take it hard when I fail.
But God forgives, dog wags his tail
God thought up and made the dog
Dog reflects a part of God
I’ve seen love from both sides now
It’s everywhere..AMEN… Bow-Wow
I look up and I see God
I look down and I see my dog
In my human frailty
I can’t match their love for me.
Today’s Guests – WELCOME!
| Guest | Guest Of |
| Whitney Armstrong | Speaker |
| George Berglund | Bob Bargmeyer |
| Beverly Dunnington | Bob Lawson |
| Julia Johnson | Myron Rheaume |
| Jim Kilgore | Greg Fay |
| Jen Osborn | Art Hung |
| Lacy Owens | Stan Fronzaglia |
| Karl Sparklin | Brandon Barrett |
| Mia Walthers | Speaker |
All Photos from the Meeting are Here
Community Event
11/14/2019, Build-A-Bear for Oncology patients will be at Children’s Hospital. More volunteers are always welcome. Contact Nancy Lehren, the chair of Child Health and Wellness.
Upcoming Volunteer Activities
10/24/2019 – Making blankets for Care House at St Leonard. See Donna Huss for details.
11/11/2019 – Avenue of Flags deliveries for Veteran’s day will be on 11/7/2019, 4 PM, 11/8/2019, 10 AM to 1 PM, 11/9/2019, 10 AM. Flag retrieval will be 11/12/2019 10:30 AM to 6 PM. Contact Tom Novak if you can help as more volunteers are needed.
Social Events
- 11/8/2019 – 6 PM, Friday, Euchre party at the community building of Wentworth Village in Bellbrook off 725. Food and drinks will be provided. Cost is $10.
- 12/10/2019 – 6 PM, Tuesday, Holiday Party at Yankee Trace
Happy Birthday Wes Cleaves
Wes Cleaves was at lunch today and it was his birthday. Wes has been a CNO member since 1993. Bob Duffy, who was Wes’s CNO Sponsor, led us “singing” happy birthday to Wes. I think Bob should have warned us and Wes before starting. Oh boy was it bad! Thanks, Bob, for making Wes’s birthday extra special, and please for the sake of our hearing please watch a YouTube video on how to conduct a choir. Apparently, we all need to find a YouTube video of how the melody for Happy Birthday is supposed to sound.
Today’s Presentation from the USO
Gary Aiken introduced Mia Walthers, the Director of Development for the USO at Wright Patterson AFB and the Airport in Vandalia. She is a retired Air Force Veteran. Her husband was also in the military.
Website for USO Central and Southern Ohio
The United Service Organizations Inc. (USO) is an American nonprofit-charitable corporation that provides live entertainment, such as comedians, actors and musicians, social facilities, and other programs to members of the United States Armed Forces and their families. Since 1941, it has worked in partnership with the Department of War, and later with the Department of Defense (DoD), relying heavily on private contributions and on funds, goods, and services from various corporate and individual donors. Although it is congressionally-chartered, it is not a government agency.
Mia started by saying she lists her hometown as Seoul, South Korea, but she is an American citizen and so American that she bleeds red, white and blue.
Her son is about to redeploy for 12 months, which is another big reason she loves and helps the USO. She appreciates the fact that the USO provides mobile Wi-Fi spots so she can communicate with her son while he is deployed.
Also attending today’s meeting is Whitney Armstrong, who is the assistant director and manager of the WPAFB USO. She is the spouse of a military man.
The WPAFB USO is responsible for 65 counties in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. The worldwide USO is on 220 bases and combat forward areas around the globe.
The USO offers many services for soldiers and their families. They offer activities for children and entertainment as you would expect. You may not realize they offer other services like transition classes for re-entering civilian life. More program services are on their website.
They also field many types of requests. They always answer the phone. She said some of the requests get very interesting, but no matter what they take it seriously and try to be of service.
There is no federal funding for the USO. Each USO is responsible for raising funds for their area since very little comes from USO, Inc. If you donate money directly to the WPAFB USO, then the money stays there. You can earmark the money to events like the Christmas Party or for School supplies, book bags, etc. You can easily donate time or money using their website.
WPAFB does provide them a room for their activities. It is not large, and it was built in 1965, but it works. The USO is generous to other entities. Each year the USO WPAFB facility is used for free for about 160 events per year by other entities.
Annual USA Christmas Party at WPAFB
Each year they have a Christmas Party that CNO helps make happen by the donation we make each year.
She said the donations CNO gives each year makes a huge difference to the children. There are activities, gifts and Santa Claus. There is a waiting list for their event at the base. Food and drinks are donated from places like Chick-Fil-A and nearby cookie companies. She gets as many donations as possible, but it still costs about $2500 to hold the treasured event.
The fire marshal limits the number of people in their room to 150. This means only 50 children can sign up. By the time parents and volunteers are added for the 50 children, they hit the room capacity.
Currently they have to turn away between 50 and 100 children each year. They are considering having 2 parties, but that is not simple. They would need another $2500 and a lot more volunteer time. They are considering having two parties back to back for 2 hours each.
Mia showed us a slide show of pictures from the 2018 Christmas party. She said the volunteer playing Santa Claus looked great and was awesome with the kids. It looked like everyone was having a lot of fun!
CNO Donations 2013 through June 2019
Click this link to see a summary of the donations our club has made.
Over 50 years, we have donated close to $2,000,000 to our youth community. In the past 6 years, we have donated nearly $700,000.
Birthdays
| Member | Birthday |
| Wes Cleaves | October 15 |
| Craig Dring | October 16 |
| Renee Glenn | October 17 |
| Steve Rudisill | October 17 |
| Greg Griffin | October 19 |
| Gary Anderson | October 20 |
Membership Anniversaries
| Member | Month | Day | Joined | # Years |
| Keith Meyer | October | 16 | 10/16/2013 | 6 |
| Anita Foster-Polizzi | October | 17 | 10/17/2017 | 2 |
| Greg Smith | October | 17 | 10/17/2007 | 12 |
| Jean Pummill | October | 17 | 10/17/2012 | 7 |
| Aaron Campbell | October | 20 | 10/20/2009 | 10 |
| Monty Zinck | October | 20 | 10/20/2009 | 10 |
| Steve Campbell | October | 20 | 10/20/2009 | 10 |
| Tom Henderson | October | 20 | 10/20/2009 | 10 |
| Carrie Million | October | 21 | 10/21/2015 | 4 |
| Evelyn Griffin | October | 21 | 10/21/2015 | 4 |
| Steve Blake | October | 21 | 10/21/2015 | 4 |
New Member Readings and Inductions
| Name | Sponsor | 1st 2nd 3rd Reading or Induction |
| Louise Haun | Mike Bevis | 3rd Reading |
| Andy Higgins | Mike Brubaker | 3rd Reading |
| Dawayne Kirkman | Debe Dockins | 2nd Reading |
Sergeants at Arms
| Member | Infraction |
| Art Hung | Caught on camera sitting down during a standing ovation at recent meeting. |
| Gail Aiken | Bragging about “stripping and winning” while buying raffle tickets last Tuesday. |
| Jerry Stahley | Looking better while impersonating the grim reaper. |
| Roland Rapp | Questioning how the Sergeants split money for 50/50, happy bucks and fines, like he thinks he is a Junior Gary Smiga. |
| Kelly George | Thinking Brandon Barrett memorizes his hair salon schedule, he said she is going to have to use the phone. |
| Mary Madden | Having a “senior moment” thanking Joe Madden last week for being so helpful, she must have been delirious. |
| Mike Bevis | Name badge is missing (no one knows why), so it is assumed he lost it. |
Happy Bucks!
| Member | Reason |
| Art Hung | His fitness trainer Jen Osborn was his guest today. |
| Joe Madden | He feels that Art Hung is not following instructions well with his new trainer. |
| Tim Clemmer | Art has friends. |
| Sue Brubaker | She finally got a copy of her son’s book – the Taxidermist Catalog. |
| Barbara Santo | James Free, always a major sponsor for our golf event, told her that our event is the best that they sponsor. |
| Tom Novak | Thanks to the flag assembly team for their work last week. |
| Gail Aiken | Keeneland trip social was a blast last week. |
| Bob Burkman | Carol Burkman was at today’s meeting. |
| Martin Huffstutler | Fantastic job that USO does for the families of soldiers. |