Kiwanis of Middlesex and Mathews

by William Shuman

Speaking of Mathews, we gave an award to one of their students. One of our goals is encouraging students to excel in school, and one way of achieving this goal, is by giving out awards. The award is called "Above and Beyond Award". Ashton DeNio is a student in Mathews, and he had set certain goals that he want to achieve in the current school year. Young Ashton achieved his mission and his reward was a gift card, which was presented to him by Jessica Lehoux, who is Customer Service Representative for Chesapeake Bank and long time Kiwanis member, Joe Cromwell.

Our guest speaker was Ralph Oppenheim, who is the Executive Director for Middlesex County Public Library. He has recently moved to our area and lives in Deltaville and comes from West Virginia. He was telling us what he is trying to do to maintain the two libraries in the county, one being in Deltaville and the other in Urbanna. Like everywhere money is the biggest problem, but volunteers is what keeps the books flowing, and service up to date.

Something new at the library now is coffee and hot coco being served. This sure makes the place more relaxing and enjoyable to visit and pick up a book or research some matter. Another way to raise money is by selling a cook book, that has been put together by local people of our area. So the next time you are near one of our libraries, drop in have a cup, and pick up one of their cook books.

Our Kiwanis club has been looking for a civic project, and we think that we have found one. Cleaning books at the library.

This past month we also had a wonderful story told to us. Frances Hall, who is in her 90s, told us about her trip this summer to France to the town of Mouaze where the townspeople honored her brother who was shot down on June 10, 1944 and buried there. William Merchant joined the Army Air Corp in 1942 and upon completion was assigned to the 352 Fighter Squadron 353 Fighter Group out of Richmond. He had a choice to remain in the States and become an instructor, but instead went to Europe.

When her brother's plane crashed in the area, his body was recovered in still occupied France. The Germans removed his ID and told the residents to do what they wanted to with the remains. Frances told us about meeting the lady who prepared his body and told about receiving a whistle that her brother wore. She showed us this whistle and blew it for us.

A slide show of her trip was presented as she talked about her trip. A plaque was placed on the town wall, about this incident, and speeches were made by many people. Over 500 people were present, along with children. In the pictures one could see a1941 Buck, with a large white star, along with old Army Jeeps which were part of the ceremony. In a field outside of town an American flag was flown on the spot where his plane had crashed.

Claudia Soucek accompanied her grand-mother to Kiwanis to help tell this story.

This month is always important to us, as the first week of November is Oyster Festival, which is our biggest money maker. If no one has never been to Urbanna's Oyster Festival, make plans to join us next year. It was a very successful event for us, thou we collected a little less then last year, but baed on our knowledge from other events, we did about 15% less which is about the national average.

Several members had an inter-club with the Tonal Club for a great lunch and their quest speaker. She was from the American Red Cross and on the way back to Urbanna, we discussed getting someone to give our member a refresher class in CPR.