The Daedalian General Membership Meeting was held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in North Austin at 1900 hours on Thursday, 21 February 2013. It was a dinner meeting with members gathering as early as 1800 hours.
Following a social period, the Flight Captain, Ron Butler, called the meeting to order at 1900 Hours. After the invocation, the Flight Captain led the group in the Pledge of Allegiance. The Provost Marshall toasted our departed brothers, sisters, and the Commander-in-Chief. The Flight Captain introduced our honored guests.
Ron requested members to volunteer for Treasurer and Vice Flight Captain. New blood is always needed to keep the organization viable.
A list of guests follows:
GUESTS HOST
Mary Boyce Ward Boyce
Bonnie Burris Darrel Burris
Martha Davis Ron Butler
Thea Dake Ted Dake
Pat Densford Charles Densford
Terri Dula Brett Dula
Charlotte Firestone Ken Firestone
Nicholas Kehoe Ron Butler
Lydia Mastroanni John Mastroanni
Marge Meyer Andy Meyer
Diane Stevens Scott Stevens
Charlene Tapman Tom Tapman

There were 35 members and 12 guests in attendance. $ 140 was collected for the raffle. Following dinner, the meeting was reconvened at 2018. The minutes from the last meeting were approved.
Ron introduced our speaker, General Nicholas Kehole, the national commander for the Order of Daedalians. General Kehoe handed out a paper that the National Board has developed concerning membership. He stressed that the Board (and he) was not advocating any position about changes in membership, but wanted to present some possible changes. One initiative that has been accepted by 288 new pilots is a free 3-year membership. He posed the question about admitting warrant offices, navigators and weapons officers. The Board is looking for feedback and comments from the members. General Kehoe briefed on the "State of the Order". Although the membership is down from our high 1990, it was up in 2012. The Order soloed 15 cadets and two of them were from the Longhorn Flight. The next national convention is in San Diego on October 2-5.

General Kehoe also talked about his time as head of the Medal of Honor Foundation and provided the links to stories about many Medal of Honor recipients. The Medal of Honor day is March 25th.

The link below will take you to a YouTube site where there are more than 100 powerful Medal of Honor stories from WWII to Afghanistan.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MedalOfHonorBook?feature=watch

Mike Slack will speak at our next meeting on April 11th. He spent 8 years at NASA in the space shuttle program and has a master's degree from A&M in Aerospace Engineering. We need ideas for programs for June, August, and October.
The Flight Captain thanked everyone for coming and closed the meeting at 2047.