At 2:15pm on October 22, 2011, Class Vice President Barry Steelman called the Annual Meeting to Order. The meeting was held at the Class of 1970 tailgate tent immediately prior to Navy’s homecoming game against East Carolina University. There was a good turnout for the meeting.

After welcoming everyone in attendance to the meeting, Barry called upon our new Class President, Mike Novak, to address the Class. Mike started his remarks by thanking everyone for electing him Class President. He said that he is honored and humbled, and will try his best to follow the exceptional leadership of his predecessor, Lynn Widener. Mike pointed out that we had two distinguished Classmates in attendance at our meeting and he welcomed: Dan Akerson, CEO of General Motors and Cutler Dawson, CEO of the Navy Federal Credit Union.

He stated that a number of our classmates have truly gone above and beyond the call of duty, and deserve to be recognized for their accomplishments and contributions to our Academy and to the Nation, we can do that by nominating them for the Distinguished Graduate Award, we have one nomination in the hopper, and will be delivering a second one to the Alumni Association on Wednesday, October 26. We should nominate other classmates as well.

Mike discussed that in a few years the Class of 2020 will be entering the Academy. One of our duties will be to "link" with them as part of the Academy's “Another Link In The Chain” program. One Classmate has already offered to coordinate this for us, but we will need others to work on it to make it work.

Mike noted that we have a few of the 40th Reunion Books left over. If anyone wants one, please contact him. The price is $115.00 plus postage (about $7.50).

Mike also advised us that we are putting together a going-away present for Royal and Melinda Connell who have moved to Florida. If you have any recent (taken in the last five years) photos of the Connells, please send them to Mike. Electronic versions (JPG) work best, but he can scan most good prints and return them to you.

Mike also asked our Class that when you give to the Alumni Association Annual Fund, please designate your contributions to Class of 1970 projects. In particular, our support to the Capstone Seminar in Moral Leadership is a very valuable program, and we should all be very proud to support that program.

Mike closed his remarks with “BEAT ARMY!”

The next order of business was the Treasurer’s Report. Our new Class Treasurer, Al Beatrice, was not able to attend the meeting so Barry read the Treasurers Report for him: The Class of 1970 has five accounts. The first four of which are held by the Naval Academy Alumni Association and the fifth is held by the Class Treasurer. The balances are as follows: (1) Capstone Seminar $279,627; (2) Sailing Center $13,510; (3) Undesignated Class Project $543; (4) Class checking account $57,292; and (5) Local checking account $2,239.95.

The next Report given was by Jerry Farrell, our Class Membership Secretary. Jerry Farrell reported that: We presently have 787 Living Graduates. He also noted that 58% of our Class are Alumni Association Members: 6% Annual Members and 52% Life Members. On a more somber note, eight Classmates have died since our 40th Reunion. They are:

After Jerry read the list of our newly deceased Classmates, Barry stated that he had taken Guy Paddock, the son of our deceased Classmate Chuck Paddock, (32 Co.) to the Ravens football game the previous Sunday, which was on the date of the 10th anniversary of Chuck’s passing. Guy and his sister Virginia are both doing very well. They thank the Class of 1970 for the 40th Reunion Book that was given to them in memory of their father.

Next on the Agenda was the Corresponding Secretary’s Report. As most of you already know, Royal Connell, our Class Corresponding Secretary and his wife Melinda have moved to Florida, for a career change for Royal. Royal sent the following Report to Barry to read: “When you send photos for inclusion in a Shipmate article, please focus on the faces. Basically, if you can see the subject’s feet, the faces will be too small to recognize. Also, starting in January, all photos in Shipmate will be printed in color. Royal concluded his Report by stating “keep them cards and letters coming folks, it’s harder to make stuff up from down here, but I’ll do it if I have to.”

Royal Connell’s new interim address to send in your stories is: POB 33173, Pensacola, FL, 32508

Royal’s email address is: [email protected]

Barry then called upon our former Class President, Lynn Widener, to address the Class. Lynn thanked the class for the generous gifts provided to Ann and him at the 40th Reunion Class of 1970 meeting. He thanked the Class officers and Board of Trustees (BoT) who provided outstanding support and accomplished many things during his two terms as Class President from 2000 to 2010. He is sure the new Class Officers and BoT with Mike Novak as their leader will only accomplish bigger and better goals. His only regret was that he did not get any of our Special Guests at the 40th Reunion granted status as Honorary Members of the Class of 1970. He recounted the two funeral services he had attended on Friday and Saturday. One was for his next door neighbor from the Class of 1944, Randy King ’44 (special guest at 40th Reunion and Dad of Bill King ‘70). The other was for “Miss Peggy” Kimbo who was a hostess and waitress at The Little Campus Inn and Galway Bay at 68 Maryland Avenue for 50 years until 2009. She was known as the “True” Mayor of Annapolis. Lynn described her as “The Mother of All Midshipmen” based on her ability to take care of all Midshipmen (many are now Generals and Admirals) and greet everyone with a smile. She was especially close to her pallbearers from our class: Bert Freeman, Everett Greene, Tony Watson and Leo Williams. Bruce Henry was also in attendance. Unfortunately, Mike Roberts was unable to attend. At the end of the Friday Memorial Service the “Jaygees” sang “You Are My Sweetheart” a cappella.

The next Report was by our Class Fundraising and Giving Chairman, Nick Williams. In that Nick could not make the meeting, Barry read a Report which Nick had forwarded to him. The status of our Class Giving is:

The Class next heard from Dan Bowler, Chairman of our Reunion Committee. Dan first advised everyone that our 45th Reunion will be on September 25, 2015, again at the Lowes Hotel. Our 45th is scheduled for the weekend of Thursday, 24 Sep 2015, to Sunday, 27 Sep 2015. The details so far are as follows:

Next on the Agenda was a discussion of our By Laws Amendment, led by Barry Steelman, Chairman of our Class Governance Committee. As stated in the Notice of our Annual Meeting, included in the agenda was a vote to ratify an Amendment to change the By Laws so that the Treasurer, Membership Secretary; and Corresponding Secretary are no longer required to reside in the Annapolis, Baltimore, Washington D.C. area. The Amendment was first approved by the Class Officers and then by the Class Trustees, before being brought up at the Class meeting for a vote on the Ratification of the Amendment. After a Motion to Ratify the Amendment was made and seconded, those in attendance voted unanimously in favor of the Amendment. Thus the change to our By Laws took effect on October 22, 2011. Barry stated that he would make the change and publish the newly amended By Laws on our Class webpage.

Next on the Agenda was Gino Marchetti, Chairman of Navy Home Game Tailgates. Gino gave the following report:

  1. We had 5 tailgates planned for the year. We're through 4 of them so far.
  2. We catered the first 3 tailgates and are having a Chili potluck today for the East Carolina game.
  3. For Troy, the last home game, we'll be enjoying white and red crab soup from the eastern shore, courtesy of Dr. Rick Heaton. Please plan on bringing something that will complement that main dish.
  4. Attendance has steadily declined since the Delaware game. Hopefully, that condition will reverse itself for the final home game against Troy.
  5. Financially, we are within budget and on track with the plan given to the Class officers at the beginning of the season. We budgeted $1,200 for food and only about 1/3 of the way through that estimate. I expect Dr. Heaton will come close to using the remainder of the balance. With respect to the tent budget, we planned for the game attendees to pay ~75% of the season tent rental cost of $2,800. So far, home game attendees have contributed 65% of the season tent rental cost.
  6. Barry Steelman and his son, Elliot, are planning the details for the Army tailgate. I will work with Elliot after November 1 while Barry recovers from surgery to help execute the Army tailgate plans.

Barry Steelman then gave a report on the status of our Class Army game tailgate plans. The 112th Army Navy Game is being played at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland on Saturday, December 10, 2011. So far we have over 160 Classmates and their family and friends signed up to attend our newly traditional Class of 1970 Army Tailgate. We had 140 last year in Philadelphia. The parking situation is more difficult at FedEx than at Lincoln Financial so that everyone should try and get to the parking lot as early as possible. The RV lot will open at 7:00am and are RV (driven by Brad Gilroy ’99) and our caterer BigBama Barbeque (out of Philly) will be there and set up at 7:00. The car lot opens at 8:30am. The food will start at 10:30, but there will be snacks and coffee available before that. We are trying to have our Tailgate located between lamp Post 70 (in the car lot) and lamp Post 71 (RV lot). The menu is extensive and the cost is $25.00 per person. Barry explained that because of his upcoming heart surgery he will be sending out his final, but detailed, email to all those signed up the last week in October, before he turns over the helm and coordination of the Tailgate to Gino and his son Elliot Steelman.

The next Report was from Gary Knight, our Class coordinator for the Capstone Seminar Program. Gary discussed the class’ activities with respect to the Capstone Seminar program, which he explained is an offshoot of the James B. Stockdale Center for Leadership and Ethics at the Academy and consists of a one-day seminar that all senior midshipmen must participate. At these seminars the first classmen attend in civilian clothes and sit at tables of eight. Each table has a facilitator to help lead the discussions on how they would handle various types of everyday problems encountered by ships’ division officers and marine platoon commanders. A senior officer is usually invited as the luncheon speaker on leadership issues. Our class provides six facilitators on four separate dates (two in the Fall and two in the Spring).

The Capstone Seminar program is the project for which the Class of 1970 has seen fit to provide the greatest bulk of financial assistance. The annual cost of the program is approximately $19,000, and we donate over 50% of that amount. We have about $212,000 in a reserve account for future support of the program even though class donations only equaled about 85% of our planned goal. In the future, when classmates donate funds to the USNA Foundation, they are encouraged to specify on their check that the funds are to be committed to Class of 70 projects, and they can even specifically designate the money to go for the Capstone Seminar program.

Gary encouraged the attendees to volunteer in the future to agree to become facilitators. He offered that if anyone wanted further details about the program, they should send him an email and he would send a flyer on the seminars. He said that he thought the prior facilitator participants would agree with him that they got as much out of the experience as they gave and encouraged others to volunteer when the offer went out for volunteers.

For the next matter of business, Barry Steelman congratulated our Classmate Leo Williams on his reappointment by Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, to serve on the DOD New Reserve Forces Policy Board.

During the call for New Business:

A motion was made for the Class of 1970 to pursue and sponsor a memorial, award or some other effort that would be worthy for a lady who could turn a bad day into a good day by her smile. It is recommended that Tony Watson and Leo Williams be the leaders for this effort. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously. It was duly noted that Tony and Leo were not in attendance at the meeting. Also Karin Young, wife of Charlie Young, told us that she and Charlie had recently visited the Hague Winery in Hague, Virginia. The Hague Winery is owned and operated by our Classmate, Stephen Madey and his wife Cynthia. Karin brought some brochures of the Winery to hand out. Their webpage is thehaguewinery.com and their phone number is (804) 472-5283.

There was no Old Business to discuss and therefore,

At 2:50pm, there was a Motion to Adjourn, which after being seconded, was voted upon and passed. The next annual meeting will be held at the Class of 1970 Tailgate next year on October 20.

Updated: October 07, 2018
Curator: Ed Moore