Mike Jaquish remembers...
Hi Cathy. Good to hear from you, and I admire the idea of doing a
club
history. MTARS is a super club, and I'm glad to help all I can with
the
history.
It looks like you have a pretty good grip on the officers back to
1972. I
did find a note from Marshall Kingery saying that I had been elected
President of MTARS in December 1970, so apparently I was President
for CY
1971. Unfortunately, the note from Marshall did not mention the other
officers; it was a nomination letter to get the Tn Council of Amateur
Radio
Clubs to consider me as the outstanding ham of the year 1970. I was
the
recipient of the Dr. Noble Guthrie award in 1970, which was the Memphis
club's way of telling me they appreciated what I had done for the
state. I
was pretty active then, being the Section Emergency Coordinator for
the
ARRL in late 60s and the local EC.
In 1981, MTARS gave me a very nice award for my years of leading
our
emergency and public service efforts. We were into lots of stuff from
our
humble beginnings with W4UOT, K4EGC, and W4IYU in the mid 60s. We
provided
communications for Christmas parades, the Great Tennessee Rally for
the
SCCA, foot race in Manchester, as well as helping with several real
disasters, like Hurricane Camille (when we set up a major communications
clearinghouse for traffic with Louisiana), a train wreck in Normandy,
winter storms, tornados, Boy Scout adventures, liaison with CAP, telethons,
etc.
We also were VERY active in the annual Simulated Emergency Test.
So much so
that we moved Tennessee from 17th to 5th in the nation while I was
the SEC.
What a group!
We did a lot for our county and cities in terms of public service,
and any
credit I may have received was simply as the leader of the dynamic
group of
hams in our neck of the woods. These guys are my lifelong friends,
and I
need to come to a meeting sometime and renew acquaintances with them.
I
left in 1985 or 86 and just bump into a few as I travel through now.
Talk with Bill Earheart, K4EGC about the early years, too. He was
in the
first meeting at city hall, and I moved there in 1964 so it was after
that
when we started the club that later became MTARS. I'm sorry that I
don't
have a whole lot of info about the officers, but the secty should
have a
good shot at that.
I wish you the best of luck with this project Cathy. Let me know
if I can
help you any more.
73,
Mike, W4WJH
