The meeting of the OPPC was held February 19th, 2003 at 7 PM at THE TINDERBOX in Tucson. Attending were Roger, Jack, Ken, Suzi, Horace, Shel, Ken, Billy Bailiff and Mark. Also visiting us for the first time was Bernie, who said he would be joining the club, Welcome Bernie!!!

Jack stated that the Best Western would be drawing up a formal contract for our use of their conference room for the June 2003 Pipe Show and will be sent to him for his perusal and signature.

Ken suggested that we have some Hors D'ouveres with our Friday Hospitality Night before the Saturday Show. Suzi suggested something like Eegee's.

Jack suggested we have a "club pipe" raffle of sorts. The number of raffle tickets based on attendance at the meetings and then hold a drawing at the end of the year during our Hanukah-Christmas dinner to select a winner. Horace offered to donate one of his personally carved pipes with the club logo etched in it, but Jack said we would properly pay him for it as Horace has been overly generous in the past with his donations. Shel keeps a record of the attendance at each meeting so the total number of tickets given to each member at the end of the year will be accurate.

Jack announced that Walt Cannoy, an expert pipe carver from Florida, had back surgery recently. He is in a long painful recuperation period and Jack suggested we donate some funds to help in his recovery. Walt has generous in donating pipes for raffle at the club and it was felt that some donation would be most appropriate. Everyone immediately agreed and the donation was given to Jack to deposit in Walt's Paypal account.

Jack also annouced that R D Fields would be at Yea Olde Pipe and Tobacco Shope in Phoenix on March 22nd and wanted the members to give thought to going up. It will be decided at the next meeting if we will go up in a group.

Carl said that Mark was going to have new times for the closing of The Tinderbox due to slow sales after 6 PM during the week. Carl was going to contact Mark and see if he could keep the store open a couple of hours once a month on Wednesday, thus volunteering his time. Thanks to Mark for the use of his store and to Carl for generously offering his time.

Jack was born and rasied in Cambridge, Ohio and graduated High School there and attended The Trade School of Machine Accounting (a fancy term for computers in those days) in Columbus, Oh. He has 4 children from his 1st marriage, and has been married to Mary Anne for 15 years. He has worked for State and the Federal Government for 36 years and is now retired. He moved to Sierra Vista, Arizona in 1988 working at Ft. Huachuca as a computer specialist.

Jack and Mary Anne have 8 children, 13 grandchildren (!) and 3 great-grandchildren (!!!). Both are too young to be great grandparents!!!

Jack began collecting pipes at the age of 15 and has over 200 pipes. His favorites are the GBD collection (50 pipes) from the 60s and 70s. Like the one he is smoking in the picture which is a GBD Meerschaum lined Cavalier. As for his single favorate pipe it is the one he is smoking at the time he is asked. His favorites tobaccos are McClelland's 2015 and Bill Bailey's Balkan Blend.

Jack has another hobby, RV'ing. They have a Winnebago Motor Home and belong to the Winnebago Itaska Travelers. Mary Ann collects Beanie Babies. But their main mutual hobby is the grand kids and they always seem to be on trip to see them.

Jack has been the pillar of our annual Pipe Show here in Tucson. Jack is the RingMaster of the PipeSmoke Ring and Co-founder of the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) #pipes. With this he has contacts all over the world with other Collectors and Vendors, and because of this our show has been very successful.