I would like to thank you for your vote of confidence in me as your next president.

Thank you to Ken Faucett for filling the position the last couple of years. Those were a couple of important years in stabilizing and the club and keeping it going after the loss of Darrell Ferguson. Thank you Ken.

I would also like to thank Bob O'Brien for his years of service as Sec/Treas. He has kept the money organized and everything floating smoothly during this transition as well. Thanks Bob.

Thank you to Michael Olsen for building our website and keeping our beautiful birds in front of the world.

I am excited about the EXCITEMENT in the club this year. Thanks to many donations over the last couple of years, we have had world renowned breeders as judges for several of our meets. I will not try to mention everyone because I know I will forget someone, so just let me say, Thank you for all your generosity.

However, with that said, I would be remiss if I did not personally thank Mike Owen and Sherry Beadle for their huge donations. As most of you know, Sherry is a famous artist of exceptional talent. She has painted personal paintings for President's of the United States as well as many other items including famous race horses, Native Americans, Ranching scenes, pigeons and much more. Over the last several years, she has donated prints worth hundreds of dollars (may thousands) to be auctioned off as fund raisers for the club. Many of us, could never afford her paintings without her great generosity. We are in the process of trying to get her to find a way that one or two of her Bokhara paintings can be put into affordable prints that people can buy and enjoy. We also have several other fund raising ideas in the works, which we will share as they progress.

In 2007, we had several shows in the midwest so the numbers of birds exhibited at each was down. I am hoping that in 2008 we can see more focus on the young bird show in Louisville, KY in October, the Pageant of Pigeons in CA., in November, the Annual IBTC Meet at Des Moines, Iowa in December. I know it is hard to get birds prepared and keep them in shape for all the shows and it is getting more expensive to travel to all the shows but as the club membership grows, we should have more breeders across the country that can exhibit at least one of the shows.

I am wishing you all a great breeding season. Please feel free to contact any of the officers to help out or if you have any suggestions you would like the club to consider.

Orin DuChien, President IBTC

pres@bokharas.com