WBA had its annual Holiday Party on Saturday evening, January 22. Jon Pelham was generous to host it at his house again. It is generous when you think of having about 25 fun-loving party types milling about talking, laughing, sharing stories and balancing paper plates heaped with food on their laps on your good furniture and clean carpet. The food was excellent with the annual smoked turkey as a centerpiece, surrounded with a wonderful array of potluck specialties. The gift exchange was spirited with the several highly sought after items making the rounds from person to person to the delight of the new recipient and the groans of the past recipient. This year seemed to be heavy on really nice things and lighter on the white elephants.

Speaking of Annuals, the Board expects to have the Annual Conference in the Spokane area this summer. WBA has a core of enthusiastic members with excellent butterfly expertise in the area and a wealth of favorite butterfly field trip locations. The Board is following up on our Outreach focus and the Spokane area presented itself as a great butterfly area with potential for new members. It promises to be a fun location with great butterflying and it will be even more fun if we have new people joining us and discovering that they live in a butterfly-rich place. The exact location has not been determined yet but areas to the north of the city look very desirable. Joyce Bergen is working on venue possibilities.

More news to follow soon. As part of our outreach effort, Idie Ulsh will present a program titled “Wings of Beauty” in Spokane on April 14.

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