Family & Friends
July 2007
Former FMCA national president Glen R. Key, L26355, passed away at his home in Chandler, Oklahoma, on April 25, 2007, at the age of 90.
Glen and his late wife, Martha, joined FMCA in 1976. Glen served as FMCA’s national president from 1986 to 1988. Prior to that, he served as national senior vice president (1984-1986) and as national treasurer (1983-1984). He also was a member of the Finance Committee (1981-1986), the Management Committee (1982-1986 and 1988-1990), and the Convention & Rally Committee (1984-1986).
FMCA experienced tremendous growth during Glen’s presidency. In fact, he formed a Blue Ribbon Committee to explore ways to cope with future growth and challenges. He oversaw the expansion and renovation of the association’s national office facility in Cincinnati and initiated plans to buy the property for FMCA’s Round Bottom Road office building, which now houses FMCA’s member services department, including the mail forwarding operations, as well as storage facilities and a campground. In 1988 member number F100000 was assigned. FMCA celebrated its 25th anniversary while Glen was president, which was commemorated during the July 1988 convention at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. In 1990 he received the Member of the Year Award during FMCA’s summer convention in Minot, North Dakota.
Glen was born in Chandler on November 17, 1916, and grew up on the family’s 160-acre farm. After high school he studied accounting at Hill’s Business College in Oklahoma City from 1934 to 1936. He married Martha Marie George in June 1938 and the couple had three children: Anita, Phillip, and Kathryn. Glen was drafted into the Army in June 1945 near the end of World War II and was discharged in December 1945 after a ruling was made favoring the release of anyone with three or more children.
Glen and three partners formed the Pucket Drilling Company in 1954, and in less than a year the group sold their operation for tenfold the original investment. He used his share of the profits to buy the first of seven Oklahoma banks he would have a hand in purchasing or building, as well as an 1,880-acre cattle farm in Chandler.
Glen pursued many civic and political interests during this life. He was the Lincoln County campaign manager for the Oklahoma gubernatorial races of 1946 and 1950; president of the Chandler Chamber of Commerce in 1951; coordinator for the Democratic Party, in charge of Democratic headquarters in Oklahoma City, during the 1952 presidential election; appointed by Oklahoma Governor Raymond Gary as the general manager of the Grand River Dam Authority in 1954; a candidate for Oklahoma State Treasurer in 1962 and 1966 (defeated both times); and a delegate to the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey.
An in-depth look at Glen’s life can be found in the March 2007 issue of Family Motor Coaching magazine in an article titled “The Distinguished Gentleman.”
Glen was preceded in death by his wife, Martha, and his oldest daughter, Anita. He is survived by his son, Philip, and his wife, Connie; his daughter Kathryn Jordan, and her husband, Bill; his brother, Gerald; his sisters, Ola Cochran and Lilly Mae Fenderson; six grandchildren; and 12 great-grandchildren. Services were held on April 27 at the Parks Brothers Funeral Chapel in Chandler.
Memorial donations can be made in Glen’s name to the American Cancer Society or the American Heart Foundation.
Horrigans Called Heroes
BY Peggy Jordan, Associate Editor
Ask Bob Horrigan, F244485, if he thinks he’s a hero, and he’ll say, “To me this wasn’t a big deal.” But he and his wife, Dottie, have been hailed by the Milford, Massachusetts, Police Department for helping catch a driver in a hit-and-run accident.
On March 3, 2007, the couple was driving home to Framingham, Massachusetts, after a night’s work at Milford Regional Medical Center. Dottie is a secretary in the maternity ward, and Bob, a retired police officer, works in hospital security.
“We were driving home just past midnight and there was a big, black SUV in front of us,” Bob said. “We saw a lady get out of a car and the SUV hit her.” At first the SUV driver put on his brakes, but then continued on. Bob saw that people were coming to help the woman who had been hit, so he and Dottie started following the SUV.
Dottie called 9-1-1 and as Bob followed the driver, she gave the police information about their location. “We ended up following him about 15 miles down Interstate 495,” Bob said. Massachusetts State Police helped to stop the driver, and the Milford police charged the 21-year-old man with driving under the influence, leaving the scene of an accident, driving without a license, and failure to stop/yield.
“We went from there back to the hospital where we work to see the lady,” Bob said. The accident had left the 47-year-old woman with a concussion and a broken foot.
This was not the first time the couple, who regularly work the night shift, have found themselves in situations where they could help police. Once, they alerted law enforcement officers to an intoxicated driver they spotted, who eventually was arrested. On another occasion, they were able to help catch a man who had been posing as a police officer, using a car he had equipped with strobe headlights to pull over potential victims. “They’d been looking for this guy for months,” Bob said. That is, until the night he tried to fool the wrong people and stopped the Horrigans.
Bob and Dottie have been FMCA members since 1997 and now own their second motorhome.
Chapter Calendar
By Linda Barcus, F293643
As the editor of the CENOIS Prairielanders chapter newsletter, the “CENOIS Banner,” I try to acquire as many pictures as possible at rallies throughout the year. Our chapter is 5 years old, so I have been able to build a pretty good photo collection. At the end of 2006, I decided to use those pictures from the past and make a calendar for 2007.
To create the calendar, I used a software program called Print Shop 21 from Broderbund. This program makes it easy to insert the pictures onto the pages, and I can use various cropping methods for different shapes.
Rather than fill the daily squares with members’ birthdays and anniversaries, I printed the info on the back page of the preceding month. This way, when you hang the calendar up, you see the monthly grid on the bottom page and that month’s birthdays and anniversaries on the top page. I also printed the front page with the CENOIS poem on card stock. On the last page of the calendar, for quick reference, I printed the rally schedule for 2007, including rally dates, the names of the wagon masters, and rally locations. Blank spaces remain where members can write in updates as information becomes available. I used Microsoft Word to make the calendar, the poem, and the rally schedule.
Once the calendar layout was completed, I had it printed on glossy 32-pound paper. This is a good picture paper that can be run through an ink-jet printer without smudging the colors. The top is bound with a plastic binder. I have a hand-binding machine for small projects. The machine punches the holes in the paper, and then attaches the paper to the binding ring.
I checked with several printing companies to find out what it would cost to have 14 double-sided color copies made and the pages punched and bound, and the price quotes I received ranged from $9 to $16 per calendar. So I figured I could do it a whole lot cheaper myself.
Figuring on 20 calendars, here is a close estimate of my costs: paper “” $10; plastic binding rings (100 per package) “” $12; ink-jet cartridge (one cartridge) “” $90. The total cost for the project came to approximately $112, which averages out to $5.60 per calendar. However, this does not include mailing envelopes and postage, which added a little more to the average cost.
I think this is a great way to show off all those fantastic rally pictures, remind folks of birthdays and anniversaries, and provide information about the yearly chapter activities, all in one useful calendar.
Years and years of FMCA history here! Members of the Pipe Dreamers chapter, a group for longtime FMCA members, posed for this photo at FMCA’s 77th International Convention in Perry, Georgia, this past March.
The chapter was formed in 1991 and got its name from a magazine column called “Pipe Dreams,” written by another longtime member “” FMCA’s first executive director, the late Ken Scott, L63.
Members of the Pipe Dreamers chapter get together at every convention to renew old friendships and reminisce about the past. Some of these members can tell you what it was like at FMCA’s earliest conventions when only a few hundred coaches were in attendance. They all have great stories to share.
If you have a family membership number of F28284 or lower and joined FMCA prior to the end of 1977, you qualify for Pipe Dreamers membership. For more information, contact Sid Huling, 3680 Hopper Hill Road, Cincinnati, OH 45255; (513) 752-5577; e-mail: huling@isoc.net