Paul Alford and his wife Jean were the hosts. National membership
had reached 786 with nearly 100 member families present totaling about
150--the largest number of attendees yet!
Family members by state were: Mississippi 17; Alabama 16; Texas 13;
Georgia 12; and Louisiana 10. There were four from Missouri and three
each from North Carolina and California; two each from Florida, Tennessee,
Kentucky, Arkansas and Oklahoma; one each from New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Kansas.
The business portion of this meeting included many administrative
changes. Five officers resigned from the board of directors in Decatur:
D.L. Alford, Jr., Gil Alford, James P. Alford, Julius M. Alford and
Lodwick H. Alford. Four new directors were added: Janice Stogsdill
Smith, Lynn Davidson Shelley, Marian Alford Hodges, and Paul Warren
Alford.
The State of Missouri published a new Corporation manual with many
changes requiring a revision of the AAFA articles of incorporation.
These were made and approved, with minor changes, by the board of
directors for a subsequent mail ballot approval by the membership.
In addition, the association made several organizational changes activating
an executive committee and discontinuing the position of executive
director. Titles of many workers were changed from previous assorted
names to "associates." The membership approved the publication
of an Alford cookbook and Sally Stoewer and some of her associates
began action to accumulate recipes. The book to be available at the
next meeting.
The non-business activity began with a genealogy workshop conducted
by members on Friday morning and the regular program continued through
Sunday noon. Noted genealogist Professor Robert Scott Davis of Wallace
College was a speaker at the workshop on Friday afternoon. David Price,
Jr. was inducted into the Alford Hall of Fame for his contribution
to the Alford effort over the years. Two entire meeting rooms were
devoted to Sally Stoewer's AAFA Store, where members could buy AAFA
sweatshirts, mugs, caps, etc., and to AAFA research materials, open
throughout the meeting for those wishing to find their families in
the records AAFA has accumulated and Gil Alford has organized. Special
tours were arranged for the Space Center in Huntsville.
