Update!

Here's the update on the situation...

We have been getting questions and have extended to donation deadline until Wednesday Dec 16th. If you are sending a check please make payable to Kay Smith or Jeff Shepherd. Please forward to those you have made contact with and thanks again for your help.

-Mom said that John told his wife the military had dropped them some supplies, but it wasn't enouhgh to sustain them...John would never ask for anything, so she knows how dire the situation must be.

Helping John!

This was an Email I got from my mom...I talked to her on the phone about it....we love this guy, he's family...and this is totally legit!


I hope that all of you will understand what I am about to ask of you and for those of you who know me, know that this is not a scam. If anyone wants to call me, feel free to do so. 678-876-5011. (or call me...Holly...801-360-1940)

I am at work tonight and have just received a phone call from the wife of Sgt John Starnes who works with me. I have attached his picture. I know that some of you know how much I love this guy. He has served in Iraq and is now in Afghanistan. He is one of the most special people that anyone could ever know. They have just been bombed and all that they have has been destroyed. They have no food except for a few things they had in their backpacks. They are trapped and are in dire need of food and some other items. One of his best friends is a Sgt at the Police Dept with me and if we can get some donations we can purchase the things that they need and get them in the mail this next week. John said that there is a helicopter that will drop the items by parachute. Many of us do not realize how little these heroes of ours do not have. I remember John telling me that on his last tour that they had to steal food because they were so hungry. I had no idea.

If there is any way possible please forward this to all of your friends and family who might can help. We are asking if you can put just 1 or 2 dollars in an envelope and mail it ASAP so that we get the money by Tuesday. 1 or 2 dollars will add up if we can get enough people to do this. With it being Christmas time we did not want to ask for any more because we know that the economy has hit everyone pretty hard. But, these guys are fighting for our freedom. John's guys are Special Ops and are in a remote area.

Myself and Sgt Shepherd will then go and purchase the items that are on the list and mail them right away. We do have someone that is going to pay for the shipping, as it will be quite costly.

If you can help, we thank you in advance. For those who cannot, God Bless you and you can help by keeping them in your prayers. Remember, we need this ASAP and no later than Tuesday Dec. 15th.

Please include your name and family members names so that we can let the guys know who did this for them. THANK YOU SOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!

Please mail to:

Kay Smith

c/o Hogansville Police Dept.

117 Lincoln Street

Hogansville, GA 30230

Back on the Ball

K, so it's been far too long since I've hit the blog so here I am. Life is pretty good at the moment. time here at the Y is winding down and it's getting kind of scary. I am super swaped with school. I'm only taking about 15 credit hours, but they all seem really heavy with coursework. I will be finished in December and head home to hopefully get a job.

So I've been trying to get in every last sporting event I can since I won't be here next semester. This past week, the sport of choice has been basketball. I went to the game last thursday and had a blast. There was a girl from my ward and her friends that sat with me. Our main goal was to get on the jumbotron. During the 2nd half we decided to go all out. The song "Everybody Dance Now" came blaring across the loudspeakers and we grabbed the chance. The four of us threw out our favorite dance moves and were going hard when finally the screen focused in on us for about 15 seconds. It was the greatest ever! I've never been so proud of my dancing skills before. Tuesday I went to another game and got mauled by Cosmo the mascot. First, I would like to say that there is no reason in the world that a cougar should wear that much cologne. He wouldn't let go of my hand and was right up on me and finally when he left, he grabbed me by either side of the head and pulled me in for a huge smackeroo, leaving me a little more than disheveled. It was definitely an event! The official season opens Friday...super excited!

May 25th - May 31st

Monday was our last big day of kids because school is out for most folks now. I felt like things just fell into place. We were a little short with people to fill in so I had some extra responsibilities. There are 5 main points to the tour when we take a school group around. First, they start in the main museum and watch the 13 minute site film. It's fun to start there because I get to give all of the kids the big lecture about spitting out their gum and not taking flash photography when inside and not running or leaving the pathways and listening when the rangers are talking and so on and so forth. Then I get to take the group out on site. This week was fun because I got to take the group to three of the main areas out on site. I was in charge of the Flag Walk (a walkway with a flag and stone donated to us from every state), the bump gate (a gate specially designed by FDR to open when he tapped it with his bumper and close automatically behind him), and the Legacy Exhibit (Where the Unfinished Portrait is located). I have been watching and listening to the rangers very carefully trying to pick up on some of the stories and activities they do when they take the groups around and I am starting to pick up on a lot of them. Now I have developed my own way of showing off each exhibit. Everything is running so smoothly and I am not afraid of answering questions or taking the groups around by myself. There are few questions I can't answer now and when on comes along I just radio a nearby ranger if I don't know the answer
This week I got to feel out a bunch of new skills and opportunities. On Thursday we were very overstaffed, or what seemed like it to me. I wasn't sure what to do with myself for about the first hour. Then Loette, on of the rangers on staff, came and ushered me into the Artifact room. The artifact room is a huge room adjacent to the main body of the museum where all of the excess artifacts are kept in acid free paper and on acid free cardboard in huge cages. Our artifact room is the envy of a lot of different sites, or so I'm told. Loette is still going through and organizing most of the artifacts and cataloging them. That is what I did for the rest of the day. We pulled out a bunch of old pictures and some old soldiers uniforms and wheelchairs and everything under the sun. I would take pictures of each item and Loette would write down the artifact number and description. Eventually, this information will be entered into the computer for easy access. I had to wear white glove all day long that turn yellow pretty quickly because of all of the dust. I spent a lot of time sneezing. I really enjoyed it all. I am a total history buff, so to be able to see a lot of it in action was an incredible experience. I sorted through some old blankets that were given to FDR as a gift. They were all so intricate in detail and I thought about how it must have been when these were in their heyday. He would have taken them out and had them place on the bed or hung from the wall. There was one in particular that was given to him from Germany. It was a crocheted picture of a phoenix that had something written in Latin on it. It was very fragile and frayed at the ends but nonetheless beautiful.
Friday was a fun day as well. I got here and was told that I would be down in the gift shop all day. I had previously learned how to use the cash register, but hadn't gone very deep into the system yet. Diane, the gift shop manager, wanted me to do just that. I stood there and went through all the tabs and she explained what each one would do. I toyed around with some things and found where they print their daily reports. I could also keep up with the admissions totals and see how many of each age group had been admitted for the day. This really interests me because i enjoy paying attention to the demographics of the people who come here. I am always apt to ask people where they are visiting from and what made them come here instead of certain other sites in the area. This is definitely a heritage site. People come here because of the memories it stirs up from their own lives. So many people remember FDR and what they did for them or their families. Anyway, so I spent a lot of time getting to know where things were in the gift shop and what sort of items we sell to people.
At lunchtime I got a call from my boss and he wanted to pay for one of the interpretive rangers to go and take me to lunch to show appreciation for the work I have done here. I was surprised, but it was a very nice gesture. I spent the rest of the day with the "Terp" and we delivered fliers for upcoming programs and got to know the community a little bit better. We finally ended up in the Warm Springs Welcome center. It was the old train station that FDR would travel in and out of and they made it into a really nice welcome center. The lady working there, Sarah, was really nice. She talked to me for a longtime about the importance of hospitality and some of the career options in my field of study. She then invited me to come back and volunteer at the welcome center sometime. I think i might do it. It would be a chance to get a little more experience and that is what this summer is all about.
Today is Saturday and I am off tomorrow. Saturdays are kind of lazy days when I have the chance to catch up on journal entries and go down on site to help people out with breaks. On Monday I will start working with the secretary in the office learning about the duties that fall under her job. I will also spend some time with maintenance next week for a couple of days taking care of the grounds. I'm looking forward to it, but I am excited for my day of rest tomorrow! The little White House is definitely treating me well.

May 18th - May 24th

We have had an awful time with the rain this week. It feels like it has been raining for weeks without end. Tuesday was especially bad. It was raining so hard that you could barely see in front of your face. At one point, the gutters were overflowing so much that water started seeping up through the carpets next to the cane exhibit. I had never seen such a thing, but it sure happened. The maintenance crew had to get there quick. One of them was outside digging trenches for the water to flow into and others were inside with the ShopVac trying to keep the water down. Before we knew it, the sun was starting to peak through and the rain let up for a while giving them all the opportunity to dry things up. Meanwhile, three of our scooters were left out in the rain by visitors and had to get them back under the shelter...in the rain. They were soaking wet with about 3 inches of water in the seat. I took a few rags and an umbrella with me. I tried to wipe the seat as best as I could and then put one towel down to sit on. Then I hopped on and drove it back. I was still holding the umbrella over me. When I got back, my bum was so wet, I had to let it dry out before moving on. It was pretty funny. There was a couple inside one of the exhibits sitting on a bench waiting for the rain to quit who were watching the whole thing. There were laughing pretty hard at me. Oh well, roll with the punches, right?
Thursday was all about being proper. We had a big fancy group of people coming in from the Southern Governor's Association in Washington DC. They are scouting out the place for a big conference they have coming here in November. We had to be on our best behavior. The Site manager took them out to lunch and then gave them a tour of the place. I watched as they discussed where they would hold certain activities and where they would strategically place certain displays. I guess that is what being a historical site manager is all about: making your site available to all and accomodating visitors and VIPs.
On Friday, I felt like I was on the go all day long. I was at the site for only a short time in the morning. Mary, my supervisor, wanted me to get to know all of the grounds. So I was set up to got at 11am and take a tour of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Rehabilitation institute next door. I went down to meet with Linda Creekbaum who is the designated tour lady. She gives tours every day at 11 am and 2 pm and that's pretty much it, but she sure knows her stuff. We spent about an hour and a half on the tour of the institute. I really enjoyed it and felt like I got even more of an insight into who FDR was and what his priorities were. The institute is where all of the polio patients who would come to Warm Springs would come for treatment. FDR wanted it to look nothing like a hospital so he modeled the whole thing after the University of Virgina campus. It is a really beautiful place. It is living history. They still treat patients there today, although not polio patients. After the hour and a half tour, Linda took me up to see what is called the McCarthy cottage. It is FDR's original house when he first started coming here in the 20s. There was also a movie filmed here by HBO called, you guessed it, "Warm Springs." I got to see all of the changes HBO made to the house to make it easier to film. I really enjoyed my day at the institute. It gave me a behind the scenes look at some of the reasons why people travel to Warm Springs. I could see the details emerging within the tourism aspects of this place. Why do People travel here? What are they interested in seeing?
When I left the institute, I travelled to a place called Dowdell's Knob. It is the highest point on Pine Mountain and FDR used to go there to find tranquility. Recently, a large statue of him was erected there and tourists can sit next to him and take a picture. It sort of reminds me of those benches at McDonald's that you can sit on and take a picture with Ronald. You can look out over the bluff and see the whole Pine Mountain Valley.
I did get to spend some time discussing upcoming programs with the Terps. They are throwing around some ideas for things that might bring more people in and increase revenue. They are starting to plan for some programs for next year. It was fun to sit aroud with them and talk and discuss ideas. It was even more fun when they liked one of my ideas and decided to add it to the program.
I also got to work in the house, the museum, and the gift shop this week. The more I work in these places, the more comfortable I get with them and the better acquainted with the job I get.

My First Full Week

Okay...so I kind of let the ball drop for a minute. I have been so tired by the time I get home that my fingers fail to type in the updates. I started this blog because I am required to keep a weekly journal for everything that I do here at the little white house. I think I'll probably end up just doing it once a week instead of trying a daily thing. Of course my mind is like the Georgia weather...you never know when it might change. This week has been the week that every child in Georgia decided to bring their school here to visit...that may seem like an exaggeration, but it sure didn't feel like it. We had over 600 visitors a day this week and it was hard work.
Okay...for the fun stuff. There is a guide here named Charles that I have come to love. He is the most hilarious man I have ever met and he suits me fine. Don't get him started about women, though...he has three daughters and all but one of his grandchildren are girls. He likes to remind you that he has never been able to escape from PMS in his whole life. Also, if you need to use the restroom, don't ask him! He will point you to the second pine tree on the right. I'm finally getting the hang of most things so he is trying to introduce me to some new adventures. For instance, we had a group of folks who came in and needed a ride around the site. Charles (whom I now call "Ground Chuck") took me up to get the people mover. The people mover is a large 8 seater golf cart kind of like the surrey with the fringe on the top. It has plastic covered sides that roll down if it rains. We hopped on the buggy and Charles took us off road through the woods to get to the museum. At that paint he turned over the reigns. I got to drive that thing all around which was a lot tougher than I thought it would be. I went up over a couple of curbs and almost sent Charles flying through the air. We both couldn't help but laugh. My surprise came when he took me over to pick up a group of folks to take to the house. I was terrified when Charles told me I would be driving. The passengers got on and he turned around and proceeded to inform everyone that I had just gotten my driver's license the day before and I had already lost 8 passengers in the woods never to be found again. Great. No worries...everything turned out just fine...everyone survived and I didn't have a heart attack out of fear.
I am proud of myself because I have learned so much about this place already that I can answer most any question that has been brought my way. It makes you feel good to be the one with the answers. I spent about 4 and a half hours in the museum alone and by the time I was through I could tell you where anything in the place was located. I'm the woman! I'm excited to see what the next week will be like. I hope my feet will learn to get a little less tired, but i doubt it. All of the rangers said that it is hard on the feet because the ground is concrete and has no give in it.
Just a note. I can't even begin to explain how nice it is to hear all of these southern accents again. I sure missed them. I feel like I'm totally at home...like I can use funny phrases or mumble my words together and nobody questions what I have just said. It feels nice. I love the south!

Day 2 - The Grand Tour

Boogity Boogity, Let's go Racin! Day two at the Little White House was not exactly what I expected. I got there right on time after a pretty restless night of sleep and having to take my dog out to use the bathroom in the pouring rain. I went into the office and Met David Burke on the way in. Hey is the head interpretive ranger and was getting out of his car. He is in a wheelchair and can move that thing like no other. After that, they showed me how to answer the phones and how to tranfer the calls and use the walkie talkies. It was a pretty intense little phone system. Next, we sat around talking about the previous manager and all her flaws intertwined with talks of our pets and ranger camps and movies from the 1930s. I was actually pretty excited about the Ranger camp. The two interpretive rangers (or "terps" as they are called) really want me to be involved in the junior ranger camps that they have coming up in July. I am going with them on Wednesday to the National Fish Hatchery for a meeting about the camps. It sounds pretty promising.

The rest of my day was all about the site. Mary dropped me off down at the museum and told me that I was to spend my time walkig around with the "Tour Mate" ( a little black remote looking thing that you punch in numbers that correspond with displays and then it tells you a story about that display). And that is what I did for 4 and a half hours.l I walked around the entire site and saw every display like five times each. Well, it was boring after a while, but I feel like I know a lot of what there is to know. Ask me some questions....I dare ya! I did have a good time sitting around with Betty Sue and Steve chatting about some of the local history and about local theater. I'm off tomorrow for my brother's wedding and back to work!