Sandhills MOAA

Greetings once again! I hope everyone had an enjoyable Spring and is preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Just a quick update on happenings at your Sandhills Chapter as we enter into the Summer Season.

Let me start by thanking our Chapter Board Members for their continued work and support. We continued our mission to “Never Stop Serving” by supporting Moore County Veterans and providing scholarships to local JROTC Cadets. In the past few months we’ve continued our support to local veterans attending Sandhills Community College. We continue to add members and our membership is up to 89 members .

We held membership luncheons in March and earlier this month at the Pine Crest Inn. In April, under Drew Croucher’s leadership, we held our annual JROTC Scholarship Luncheon and awarded $3,000 scholarships to a cadet from Union Pines and Pinecrest High Schools.

Although there is bit of a lull in the action over the Summer this Fall will be a busy time for our chapter. Once again we will be participating in the annual Holly Arts and Crafts Festival in Pinehurst Village on 17 October. We can always use help manning the booth at these events. Just let me or Mike Hutson, bco229th@gmail.com, of your interest in helping. Refer to our chapter website(sandhillsmoaa.org) for the most current information regarding events and activities as well as items of interest to MOAA members.

We will be hosting the annual Veteran’s Day Service on 11 November. This year the event will be held at the Southern Pines United Methodist Church. We hope you can join us as we pay tribute to all our Veterans. Thanks to Don Goss for his leadership in facilitating this event.

On 9 November, the chapter will be hosting the 5th Annual Ralph Jacobson Memorial Veterans Putting Challenge . We will be accepting applications for the event beginning in September but please mark your calendar now. As always the event will be held at the Pinehurst Members Club and include a buffet lunch, putting on the famed Thistle Dhu course and awards ceremony. More to follow on this fun event later this Summer, to include application instructions. For those interested in serving on the planning committee for this event please let me know at whavensteinsr@gmail.com. Our first organizational meeting will be at 1200, 10 July at the Village Café in Pinehurst.

Our next Membership Luncheon will be held on 15 September at the Pine Crest Inn. You can register and pay at the door beginning at 1130 hours on the 15th. We’ll announce the Guest Speaker via a mailing in August.

November will also include our Annual Membership Meeting to be held at the Pinecrest Inn. As is our practice we will be electing board members and officers for 2027 so I hope you will join us for this important meeting. We will begin at 11:30 with registration followed by lunch at noon. As part of our election process Drew Croucher, Immediate Past President, will be soliciting nominations for board members and officers in advance of the meeting.

Please refer to our website, www.sandhillsmoaa.org for the latest event news and activities.

Walt Havenstein, President Sandhills MOAA president@sandhillsmoaa.org

Mike Hutson, Secretary Sandhills MOAA Bco229th@gmail.com