Our speaker for this month's meeting is Walter Teague. He last awed us at our August 2001 meeting with a presentation on his trip to South Africa. He is back this month with his experiences in landscaping with Cacti and Succulents.

Walter has made a number of trips to South Africa as well as our Southwest, the Andes, and Mexico. He is an expert on Bomeliads, Orchids, and Succulents. A genus and eight species of Orchids are named for him.

We have just completed a very successful show thanks to the efforts of many. Our sales were great. The trend of lower sales each year was sharply reversed due to a number of factors. People liked the April show with many plants in bloom. Bill Kurtz getting a full-page article in the local newspaper brought out many new enthusiasts. We had a number of first time showers in the show and our tables were full. How about Richard Demming lifting those heavy plants?! The show knocked the socks off the public and induced buying interest. Advertising was very successful this year, and we got a lot of names for next year.

The vendors all had a great show. They worked well together witnessed by the fact that the show was cleaned up in only an hour, which has to be a new record. The plants for sale were excellent. Things went very smoothly. Special thanks to Joan Kurtz and Karla Munkacsy who spent the entire show behind the cash registers. Elton Roberts ran a great raffle. Jim Boehmke had his table next to the registers, answered numerous questions, and carried plants purchased out to people's cars. These people did their jobs above and beyond the call of duty.