Well here it is the second month to try this out via e-mail and I don’t know if it is any easier than last month as it is hard to change old habits form using Publisher. But here goes.

Our next meeting will be September 15 at 9 AM at our usually meeting place in Bannister Mall. John Wright will give our program and he will be showing us how to make a video presentation using PowerPoint and old photographs that are to be supplied by MCG members.

Here is a brief bio on John that he furnished us.

• I am a retired Gas Marketing technical executive and for over 25 years I was a designated public speaker for a large natural gas utility serving Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. I spoke about various gas-related topics to over 250 groups, some of which were as large as 500 persons. I received my public speaking training from "Engineers Toastmasters".
• I have spent approximately 14 months over the last six years working on board the Queen Elizabeth II and Crystal Cruises Ships, Crystal Harmony and Crystal Symphony as a computer Instructor and Lecturer. I estimate that I have taught over 4,500 passengers and others to use computers.
• The last several years at home have been devoted to setting up a computer-learning center at The Grandview United Methodist Church in Grandview, Missouri. The center contains 12-networked computers and the lessons that are presented are set up so that all students have hands-on experience.
• I have also developed and presented to local high school and Retirement Center computer groups a number of programs. The presentations were about "cookies", Word Processing, PowerPoint Internet searches, and browser explanations and comparisons. On line Internet programs were also presented.

The meeting was called to order by Wayne Boydston at the Blue Valley Library at 151st and Antioch. Don Bjuland reported that he sent sixty-two newsletters by e-mail. Seventeen were returned. He suggested that those who did not receive a copy should send him an e-mail to make sure Don has the correct address.

The Jackson County Genealogy Society has been moved to Pacific, which is four blocks west of Main, the former location. It is in the Amtrak Station south of the RLDS Church. It is open Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 1000-300.

Our speaker was Don Ireland, a long time volunteer at the National Archives, who told us about the many records, which are available. Don is also a history buff. These are a few of the many things he discussed.

Recording began in the Revolutionary War with names and places, "Continental Line Soldiers". State militias lists augmented these early lists. There are Pension and Bounty Land Records. Soldiers not in the index may have fought in the militia. Brumbaugh has an index to those. It is available at the Johnson County Library. The downtown library has books, but you have to ask for them. After the war, Indian wars continued in the Northwest such as Ohio. Pension applications are indexed There are Minnesota and North Dakota Draft Registrations, Old Soldiers Home records, and a Soundex for the 1900 census for soldiers and sailors. The Illinois State Archives is on the Internet. The SAR has 60,000 burial records.

Respectfully submitted,

Mary Robinson
co-secretary

I admit that I am a creature of habit, and routine is my name. When my routine is interrupted I fail to play the game, and I have difficulty getting back into the swing of things. Seems like I wrote the article for the August Newsletter back in July and we had our August meeting so early that I really do not know what month I am writing for or what monthly meeting we are getting ready to attend. Does not matter, what I have to say could fit into any month or could be skipped entirely.

I was reading an article in the paper this week about Intel getting ready to launch their new Pentium processor chip with a speed of 2 GB and another article announcing that Motorola was about to build their new processor chip which would be 35 times faster than Intel’s new 2 GB chip (that’s 70 GB). Then I read an article about Hewlett Packard getting ready to gobble up Compaq. Now Compaq has been one of the top 3 companies in production and sales of computers for about 20 years. Hewlett Packard, on the other hand, has been the top producer and seller of printers (laser and inkjets) for almost the same length of time, and only started getting involved in the computer business sometime in the last 5 years or so. So it goes with this ever changing face (what you see) of business, and the never changing "dog eat dog" competitive attitude of the business world.

It got me to thinking (and you all know how dangerous that can be) about some other big names in the business world that have disappeared forever. Many of those names were big in their day but now are long forgotten. Is there nothing sacred? Just in my short lifetime there have been names like Nash, Hudson, Packard, Studebaker, Rambler, Desoto, Crosley, LaSalle, Kaiser, Frasier, Henry J, and more recently Plymouth, and Oldsmobile are slated to bite the dust, just to name a few in the automobile business. I sort of felt like I grew up with TWA. The old DC 3 was their mainstay for a long time. I remember taking my first flight on their latest and greatest plane, the "Connie". Well not only are all of those planes gone but so is TWA --- gone forever. There are others like Pan Am, and Brannif. There have been maybe a hundred railroads go out of business or were gobbled up by bigger railroads. Some famous names that are no longer around are Walbash, Rock Island, Penn Central, Missouri Pacific, Gulf Mobile Ohio, and there is no telling how many railroads you could name. What about Montgomery Ward, Emery Bird Thayer, Builders Square, Payless, Hartzfelds, Katz Drug Store, Klines, Macys, Western Auto, Armour, Swift, Venture, A & P, TG & Y, and HQ.

Since we have a special interest in computers, consider this. Remember just a few years ago, every computer store you visited to look at the latest in computers, there were always 3 or 4 times as many Packard Bell computers available to buy than any other brand. Where is Packard Bell now? Well NEC who was also very big in computer production and sales in the early days gobbled up Packard Bell and now you do not see any of either brand on the shelf of computer stores for sale. SyQuest was very big in removable disk drives a few years ago. They had a good product and the company was giving Iomega a real run for their money to be the top dog in the field. Suddenly SyQuest went belly-up and disappeared. Iomega became the winner by default, even though they also have good products.

It makes you sort of wistful and nostalgic when you start thinking about all those names that are gone forever. You might think about some of those names, and decide that it was good riddance. On the other hand, I will bet that every one of you will remember a few of those names, and your thoughts will be painted with some degree of pleasure.

Even if you do not have any such thoughts, you will have to admit that most of those names, that were so big at one time, have made some impact on our lives. Some have even contributed a great deal to the improvement of the present day product in their specific field.

More importantly, maybe we have just figured out why the dinosaurs are all gone forever.

See you September15, 2001,

Wayne

Remember that Bill Hawkins offered to set up a data base for surname searches and he has asked to include this request of the needed format for information he would like in this newsletter.

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