We started out the meeting with a lovely “America the Beautiful” video rendition that was performed by an orchestra that was connected via Zoom.
TAMARA CRIMANDO led the Pledge of Allegiance. An interesting tidbit is that she has three parrots at home. Who would have known….unless you checked Clubrunner.
MARK IRVIN introduced our speaker, Celestino Fernandez. MARK used three words to describe Celestino: focused, focused, focused. Celestino has been retired after 39 years at the University of Arizona studying/teaching Mexican Studies and Happiness. We learned about Tucson International Mariachi Conference that was started in 1983….the Mother of all conferences. That’s because all other Mariachi conferences learn and use the Tucson Conference as a benchmark. There are two types of traditional Mariachi. Son: Folklorico Dance and Cancion Rachera (Ranch music) and is always played standing up.
Dan Ranieri, CEO of La Frontera (organizer of the conference) spoke of the logistics for the conference. The Mariachi Conference will be coming back to downtown Tucson the first week of May, 2021.
Happy Birthday to BOB ERNSTEIN who’s sponsor was BILLY JOE VARNEY. BOB has been a member for 29 years and it was great to see him!
JOE DANISZEWSKI let us know that we have sold more Car Show tickets than we had by this time last year. That’s really important because we won’t have a show this year and need to sell tickets now! He reminded us that a great way to sell tickets is for your next favorite non-profit organization to do so and you’ll receive some credit.
JEANNE ZETAH let us know that we have over 125 items ready for bid at the online auction. She needs volunteers for the online auction. Please ask her how you can help.
CLIFF BOWMAN introduced and played a video created by Make Way for Books that reminded us all why we raise critical funds for both Make Way for Books and JTED.
PRESIDENT JENNIFER HOFFMAN closed with a toast and we were on our way.
