July 12, 2009

New Arrival!!

Greetings from 36,000 feet up. I think I'm somewhere over Illinois now en route to JFK and then on to St. Lucia for work. It's been a while since the last blog and I hope the folks back home are planning on meeting soon so we'll have more updates to post.

Congratulations go out to Stephen Pipes and his wife Candice who recently gave birth to the youngest McDonald--Sienna Joy Pipes! Congrats also to Sienna's grandparents David & Stephanie Pipes Clay.

In other news: Apparently there is $300 leftover from the last reunion, which I believe was sometime in the '80s. Interest?...Stephanie Clay is looking into hotels for the out-of-towners...Mary Bell Abdullah and her husband Naim are moving to D.C. later this month. Naim will be attending the Howard dental school.

If you have any other news to share hit me up at: dmiki@aol.com

June 6, 2009

Hi All,

In effort to keep the momentum and energy going, I'm trying to update the page as often as I can. Thanks to Pam Chenault Howard for helping in the effort to use the website as the primary source of information. If you have new info to post please send it to me at: dmiki@aol.com. If you'd like to respond to someone's suggestion, please hit the comment link at the bottom of the post on this site.

I will try and send out update emails but that might not always be possible. So, please bookmark this site and check it as you would your email or Facebook account.

I'm going to post the most recent email thread regarding the reunion, and also some photos of Courtney Kilgour (see above), who is currently out in L.A. visiting a friend from college. Courtney recently graduated from Clark Atlanta University with a degree in communications (emphasis on PR). We had a great time. Also, please keep my dad, William Turner, in prayer. He's had a rough week but he's a warrior.

hi all,

here's an idea that kim dixon came up with that i think is worth considering. gary did one of these with dad last year after he was honored by amtrak for his work as a pullman porter and it really is one of the most amazing things i've ever heard. i'm thinking we could rent out the wyoming fine arts center on friday night and set up a sort of interactive presentation with the family history. if we can't spring for the storycorps, renee (there i go volunteering people again), myself and gary, who has a great knack for interviewing, could do some video interviews of older family members and the younger ones, too, as they peruse the visuals. thots?

From Kim: I was doing a little research and I found that the program is called "StoryCorps" and they are a non-profit organization that records people's interviews, provides an archival quality CD of the interview, and archives the interview with the American FolkLife Center at the Library of Congress. You can have interviewers and a booth come to the reunion for a day at a flat rate of $3000. We get six 40 min. interviews with that. Or we could do it over two days for $6000 and have 12 40 min interviews. If 50 people contribute for a day that would be just $60 per person, or $120 for two days. If we went this route we would not be able to get everyone in the family in the booth, but we could have the elders professionally interviewed and the family preserved in the Library of Congress forever! I know it seems like a lot of money, but I think we could raise the money if we could get some key people on board.

Here's the website:

http://www.storycorps.org/

Take a look a let me know what you think.

-----Original Message-----

From: steve.bell@fuse.net
To: cam31089@aol.com; pamelachoward@hotmail.com; marycbell@hotmail.com; dixonlj@muohio.edu; donnamdubois@gmail.com; Kilgour, Harold (CDC/OCOO/OD) <hek3@cdc.gov>; levy629@yahoo.com; chenault@live.com; courtney@aol.com; kilgour@student.cau.edu; msmethod504@yahoo.com; dbell002@sbcglobal.net; colleen.bell@fuse.net; Renee.Chenault@nbcuni.com; leonardchenault@yahoo.com; donaldclayjr@gmail.com; scpipes1@yahoo.com; parrishchen@hotmail.com; elloudix@yahoo.com; cyd3@comcast.net; epipes0402@yahoo.com; jap227@msn.com; clays@fuse.net; cclay.aka@gmail.com; dchenault@greatparks.org; dmiki@aol.com; sherrie.chenault@fuse.net; jmbell32@hotmail.com; akilgour@bellsouth.net; dixonkl_25@yahoo.com
Cc: steve.bell@fuse.net
Sent: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 11:27 am
Subject: RE: McDonald (Chenault, Green, Clay, Pipes, Turner/Dixon) Family Reunion News and Photos

Jo Ann this family reunion would be a great time for you to tell the McDonald
family "History" which I think you've done a Great job with.
Jo Ann can you send me a copy of the family tree so I can start up dating from
our generation down.

Thanks

Steve Bell or as Miss Woods would say "Baby Brother".

---- clays@fuse.net wrote:

I am sorry that I have not had a chance to respond, I am bogged down with
school work right now, so  this is going to be brief.  I am all for this and
will do whatever I need to in order to help make this happen.  I am for bringing
awareness to this awful disease that is taking our family one by one, but I
would also like for us to establish a scholarship fund for the kids behind us
that want to go to school.

Peace and love to everyone and I will talk with you soon!

---- "Kilgour wrote:

I am in total agreement with this, however, I would like for us to use
this as a supplement to what Daryn has already established with his
efforts with the National Cancer Society to bring awareness to this
disease.  As we establish/re-establish our family tree and relations, we
have so many more "family members" not of our blood line, but connected
due to family members either as survivors or victims of cancer.  I know
that three of our family members, Ada, Lenny, Uncle Elmer and my dad
were victims of cancer so this is something we should keep focus on as
well.  I would hope that we participate in this effort as well and even
make a monetary donation in the memory of our deceased loved ones.  I
feel the family juices flowing.

No. 1

Let's Get It Started!

Note: As promised here is the website for the family reunion. Please feel free to post your comments, concerns and ideas by clicking the "comments" link below. I've posted the initial email blast for those who didn't see it.

Hi all,

Those of us who attended Len Chenault's funeral last Friday experienced a plethora of emotions. Naturally we were saddened by the passing of a family patriarch--one who had been a very prominent figure in my own formative years--but we were also overjoyed to be together once again. Some of us hadn't seen each other in more than 20 years. It was such a tremendous blessing to reconnect that it was immediately decided that we should reunite the family--and this means all of the different branches on the tree--in the very near future.

It was suggested by Steve "Bro" Bell and Poppy Kilgour--who did a wonderful job officiating Lenny's homegoing service--that we perhaps schedule a reunion around the memorial charity golf tournament held for Sylvia Brown Chenault, the mother of Pam, Eddie and Darryn Chenault, who passed last year. The tourney is held the first weekend in May. Although no official committee has yet been formed, I was asked to send out this email blast to gage interest in the reunion and get some feedback on the proposed date.

To make this happen we're going to need assistance from everyone. Those of us over 50 do realize that there is an entire generation of younger cousins who don't know each other. I've hooked up some of you via Facebook, but this is an opportunity for you to really get to know each other. For example, Courtney Kilgour and Carli Clay just recently graduated from college with communications degrees. They should be networking. Mary Bell is about to move to D.C., a city that her cousin Kim Dixon lives in. They should be comparing notes on housing. Pepe Clay and Poppy Kilgour are both pastors, so there has to be some common bonds there.

Plus, there are a lot of new people marrying into the family and babies being born!

It's important that we establish and rekindle bonds while we are still here. As a family we have lost so many of our elders in the past 10 years and some of us weren't able to say goodbye to them. Worse, some didn't even know who they were. While some of you still have beef with folks over things that happened during the Nixon administration, it is time, as Rev. Kilgour said at Lenny's service, to let that go. Nothing is more important than family. We are strong, talented and come from a long line of folks who took the hits for us so that we can soar. We dishonor their memory by not seeking to resolve our issues.

It's time to honor them.

As I mentioned there is no official committee yet, but several people have offered to serve. Gary Dixon has volunteered his services as treasurer and I have accepted the task of keeping everyone connected virtually. Also, Steve Bell and Stephanie Pipes Clay have offered to help coordinate this effort with Darryn Chenault. And although she's not been officially asked, I'm hoping that Joann Pipes, who has been archiving the family history for decades, will serve in that same capacity for the reunion. She mentioned to me last week that she needs photos--particularly shots of some of our deceased members--in their younger days. If you have some, please reach out to her at Jap227@msn.com. Kim Dixon, who is a professional archivist at the Smithsonian, was among the first in her generation to volunteer to help out.

If you have a special skill or area of interest, please let me know and we'll put you to work. We have less than a year to pull this together and all of us are hoping that it will be an affair to remember.

What I need from all of you now is help rounding up people who aren't included in this initial blast. I'm hoping that Stephanie and Joann can help mobilize the Green clan, and that Pam and Darryn Chenault can help provide names of anyone missing from that branch of the family. Hopefully, we won't lose anyone else before we meet again, but please forward any news on graduations, marriages, births, deaths and significant accomplishments. If Johnny got an "A" in anatomy, we wanna know!

In addition to the golf tourney, which is scheduled for 11 a.m. on Saturday, May 1, it has been suggested that we have:

• a Sunday church service
• an interactive tribute to deceased family members
• a Saturday cookout
• a Friday meet-and-greet
• an organized activity for the kids (like a talent show or amusement park visit
• establishing a scholarship fund for college students

I have already heard from Darryn regarding the planned activities around that event and will share them with at a later date. Please feel free to make any other suggestions.

Whew! OK, I think that's it for now. Again, please email me with your comments and thoughts and I'll share them with the committee. If you have no interest in receiving these emails, just write "please remove" in the subject line.

Until we meet again let's keep moving upward and onward my peeps.

Cheers,

Myra "Miki" Turner