The meeting of OLD PUEBLO PIPE CLUB was held March 19th, 2003 at THE TINDERBOX INTERNATIONAL in the Williams Center at 7 PM. In attendance were Roger, Betty, Karen , Bill, Jack, Mary Ann, Berny, Sheldon, Carl, Suzi, Bob and Ken.

At the opening of the meeting, Billy Bailiff donated some unopened tins of aged tobacco for Door Prizes at our upcoming PIPE SHOW in June. Billy also suggested we have a pipe grab bag, with some estate pipes he has acquired. Each person would pay about $5 per grab and get a chance to grab an old estate pipe. the money would go to charity.

Jack reported that we had sold 13 tables already. Knoxville Cigar had purchased 3, Dean Laffery, the local rep for CAO, Savinalli, Pipa Croci and others purchased 4, Bob Clair of ebriar.com, Tom Jowoski of CA, BriarBlues of Canada, AZ carver Horace DeJarnet and new carver Greg Clemons have reserved tables so you bet they will have quite a variety of pipes for sale. As usual, Lowell Ellis purchased a suite room at the Best Western to display his legions of estate and new pipes.

The OPPC Pipe Show and Exhibition will be Saturday June 21st. There will a hospitality night sponsored by the club the Friday night before. As usual, Best Western is geared up for us, so call and make reservations (1-888-788-2766) and tell them you will be here for the OPPC Show. Cost per room is $59 per night. We will probably have something like EEgee's subs as our snacks for the hospitality night. More information is at the following page link:

The caterer for the Saturday night dinner will be arranged by our Best Western Hosts. It will be steaks and the costs is $15 per person, though the amount is not firm yet.

Jack report that we deposited our donation to Walt Cannoy's recovery fund into Walt's PayPal account.

Suzi Blanton is our Vice President and our only Life Member. she was born in Illinois but attended and graduated High School in Albuquerque , NM. After High School, she attended a technical school in electronics.

She then met and married Ray Blanton, one of our founders and first president. Ray recently left us for the Big Fleet Reserve Meeting with Lord and is probably trying to organize a Divine Pipe Club up there. Ray was in the USN at the time she married him, and she was an Navy Ombudsmen, representing the families of the servicemen and service women.

Before Ray was called up, She and Ray had been married for 22 years and had 10 children collectively and 21 grandchildren ( that's hard to believe , she seems so young!). Now on her own, actively seeking work and having fun too!

She is a member of the Fleet Reserve Auxiliary, Life member of the USS TUCSON 770 Club and has actually been out to sea on the USS Tucson! ( she did NOT, repeat did NOT get to fire any torpedoes).

She does wood working and is a Dallas Cowboy Fan. One of her hobbies is collecting McDonald's Happy Meal Toys, but that is not strange....consider us guys who collect old briar roots and smoke them!!

OLD PUEBLO PIPE CLUB

MARCH 2003