We held our business meeting on Jan.19, with Karen Franz opening our meeting with her last crazy jokes before leaving office, leading the meeting with our pledge to the flag.

Our minutes and treasurer report were read and both approved.

Ava Hutchins installed our new officers. Helen Tremain will be our new President, Deena Carter and Marie Zellner are now our new Vice Presidents, Claudia Hazelton will remain our Secretary and Lisa Smart will remain our Treasurer. Ava Hutchins is our Chaplin.

Helen gave a wonderful acceptance speech and accepted the gavel for our new year.

Karen, your leadership was outstanding, and we appreciated all you contributed to this organization.

Lisa Smart gave out our new handbooks and they were beautiful. Anyone needing an extra, or your dog chews up your new one, she has a few left for $1 each.

The ladies made a new batch of Inspiration Rocks for the Muskogee V.A. hospital. They have been such a hit at the hospital. They are out front and free to any Veteran who needs just a little help making it through their day.

Tony Asmussen (my boss in Transportation) at the V.A. is always good to help me put them out each week. Thank you, Ladies, they are so appreciated.

Speaking of help, some of my TLC ladies came to the Eufaula VFW #8798 on the 10th to help pack 50 care packages for our troops.

Connie Dickinson, one of our new members, organized the supplies and our own Lisa Smart brought a ton of food snacks purchased by TLC to be put in the care bags.

Helen brought her Seal-A-Meal, and we made batches of cookies to be included. It was a lot of fun and for such a good cause.

Connie has a grandson stationed with this group, I’m sure he made lots of brownie points with his buddies when they arrived.

After all that hard work, the TLC ladies stayed and enjoyed Wednesday hamburgers prepared by the VFW ladies Auxiliary. They make some great burgers. Then we just hung out and socialized a bit without sewing, gluing, or hammering something together to make crafts.

We may have to make this a regular thing. Lisa brought us a project to make little crochet hearts for Chamber functions. I’m not going to say crocheting is fun yet, but the more I make, the cuter they get. Think I was making them in my sleep last night.

I want to welcome our new member we got over the icy weekend, Welcome Janna Parson. I hope you come to love and appreciate what we do as much as the rest of us.

We have no birthdays for February. We put a dedication in our new handbooks for Ms. Linda Ramsey, we lost Linda this year and she is dearly missed. Our prayers and heartfelt love goes out to our sisters who are ill or under the weather.

We did our Secret Sisters gift and then I literally pigged out on some of the best soups and sides at our luncheon.

Deena made a wonderful birthday for the ladies with birthdays. As usual, I have to say “Thank YOU” McIntosh County for your support and help in making 2023 a very successful year.

We were able to help so many because of you. We are so blessed. And here’s to a GREAT 2024.

We are located on Texanna Road, right across from Dawn’s Café. Look for the little green alien in front of our store, come by and see us. We are open on Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Look for the Butterfly board. Stop and take a picture with your family. It’s free.