Dear Area Boilermakers,

Well, we weather another up and down football season including squeaking by in our bowl game, had several injuries to some key players on our women’s basketball team, and then entered our men’s basketball season starting 3 freshmen and 2 sophomores.  It has been interesting to say the least.

This fall we started a new relationship with the local IU Club by having a joint Old Oaken Bucket watching party with a twist – a half-time trivia competition between the Clubs for a miniature version of the “Bucket” hand crafted by our own Secretary, Jack Miller.  Our team of trivia experts brought the “Bucket” home to our Club in the first ever such contest.  Our Holiday Event on December 9^th at the Sarasota Yacht Club was well attended with 45 attending.  The gentle piano playing of Fred Schuchert added a “touch of class.”  2008 started with a bang as we gathered together to watch our young and scrappy men’s basketball team knock off Michigan by 7 points.  Proudly, I can announce that our membership has really embraced the food donation community project for our counties’ food banks by already giving 313 pounds of non-perishable food, which about doubles what we gave last year.  And, thanks to Peter Miller and Jay Swick, we have a new Club logo (see below)!  We’ll start using it shortly.  Lastly, we had 26 attend the Big 10 Luncheon.  It was a big draw with 488 reservations from all Big 10 schools.

By mid-February you should be getting a flyer from the PAA about our Annual Business Meeting and Social on March 25^th.  Besides having PAA’s Executive Director and CEO, Kirk Cerny, we’ll be having the event at the Sarasota Classic Car Museum located at US 41 and University Parkway across from the Ringling Museum.  If you have not seen it, I think you’ll find that it’s quite unique and fun to browse.  If you did not get this announcement, you can download a copy by going here.

As usual, we still need to recruit people for the PAA in order to get our recognition awards.  We prefer a GOLD award because it allows us to do more for our local Club and scholarships.  That means we have to recruit 9 new members each year.  So if you are not a member of PAA, please contact me and I’ll get you an application.  Thanks.

Have a Great 2008 and we hope to see you at several of our events.

Cheers and Go Boilers!

Rick Hunziker, EE’66
President
Purdue Club of Sarasota
rshunziker@tampabay.rr.com