Minden Cruisin For A Cure Wheels Through Time Car Show In The Works

Saturday May 2nd, 2009 will be the 6th year in Minden, Louisiana that car enthusiasts have come together to show that they care. Held at the Minden, Louisiana Fair Grounds, you don't want to miss the 6th annual open class car show. This years show will include a silent auction, raffle items, $500 cash drawing, good fun, good people and a great time. Live music will be provided by Minden’s own Elvis, Mr. Mike Spillers and the Debbie Water’s Bayou Majic Band will also be performing and keeping toes tapping for most of the day,
Lots of goodie-bag items, t-shirts, plenty of Coca-Cola products and maybe even a few surprises before the day is over. Most of all lots of GREAT CARS (over 300 cars have registered in the past with 4000 spectators attending this event)! In the past five years this car show has given $65,000 for cancer research. This year two great causes that are important to our children will benefit from your car show support. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Inc. are two great causes that will benefit from the 2009 show.
If you would like to be a sponsor for the 2009 car show please let Schelley Brown know as soon as possible. This year we plan on the show being bigger and better than ever! With your help the possibilities are endless. For more information please contact Schelley Brown at 318-423-0192.
For more information on the car show and registration information and forms visit the web sites. http://www.mindencruisinforacure.com/ and http://www.mindencruisinforacure.blogspot.com/ .

Car Show 2009 Net Proceeds Benefiting The Following (501) (c) (3) organizations St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital & The Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Inc.

25 Random Things About Me

This is something someone sent me on Facebook and it really made me think about myself.
1. I am very nostalgic
2. I love to write stories and have become addicted to blogging. That is why I love my personal blog www.eventsinminden.blogspot.com it gives me a place to put all my stories.
3. I am very sentimental and keep everything.
4. I love old movies one of my favorite is the Ghost and Mrs. Muir and Spencer’s Mountain. TV Land is about the only channel I watch.
5. If I am not working on a project I get nervous. I like to stay busy.
6. My New Years Resolution is that old rule your mother told you over and over. “If you can’t say something nice about someone, do not say anything at all.”
7. My Motto is a Dolly Parton quote “Smile it improves your face value!” taken from Steel Magnolias
8. I have a very short fuse when I am with certain kinds of personalities
9. I like things to go a certain way (I guess that is why I never form committees) I just do it myself.
10. I sometimes wish I could go back in time and just stay there. If I could turn the clock back I would like to go back to about 1974 and just stay in that year. I picked that year because I could drive! I would really like to go back earlier when I was a little kid.
11. I LOVE OLD CARS! My 37 Buick has changed my life. You have to read the story on my blog to understand that.
12. I am very spiritual but don’t go to church that much. It makes me cry too much. Riding on the back of a Harley with the wind blowing in my face makes me feel alive and close to God. I sometimes cry then too.
13. I cry easy when I am around older people and listen to their stories about growing up. You can see it in their eyes that they know that they have lived out most of the good parts of their life.
14. I am a volunteer person but most of it deals with old stuff. Minden Cemetery, Minden Historic District, The St. Jude Wheels Through Time Car Show, Mid America Old Time Automobile Association and the Museum of Automobiles, Ark-La-Tex Antique Automobile Association.
15. I love my job at the Dorcheat Museum it is my Dream Job
16. I want to open a B&B / Tea Room in Minden but need a bigger house to do it.
17. I love old time Bluegrass music. I also love old time rock n roll.
18. I love my niece and think she is a miracle child for my family. She is probably the reason my family survived my brother dying and my sister getting sick with cancer. She is the light in our lives. When she was a baby I would sit by her baby bed until she went to sleep and she would put her hand through the bars and hold on to my hand so I couldn’t leave. (I would play Dolly Parton and Grand Pa Jones tapes for her) she loved them when she was little.
19. If I every won or had a lot of money the first thing I would do is buy a travel trailer or motor home and start on one side of the U.S. and wind my way across seeing every little town and visiting every museum and back road I could find. My dream is to drive my old car across the Blue Ridge Mountains. I just want to see the United States. I have no desire to go overseas.
20. My relationships with men have always been complicated.
21. I have a few lifelong and almost lifelong friends that have always been their when I needed them.
22. Selling cars for almost 10 years made me wonder where all the normal people were.
23. I went to college to be a photographer but dropped out
24. I have a fear of cancer and feel like I should hurry up and live my life in case I get it. (Strong Family History of Cancer)
25. I want to make a difference in Minden and what it is and what it can be.

Friends Are Important Things In Life!

Pam, Lisa, Schelley, Gay and Debbie (We didn't let the guys in this pic) Taken at Christmas time 2008 at Lisa's Pub Room.

Good Friends Are Important Things In Life!

THIS SAYS IT ALL: Time passes. Life happens. Distance separates. Children grow up. Jobs come and go. Love waxes and wanes. Men don't do what they're supposed to do. Hearts break. Parents die. Colleagues forget favors. Careers end. BUT........ Sisters are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you. A girl friend is never farther away than needing her can reach. When you have to walk that lonesome valley and you have to walk it by yourself, the women in your life will be on the valley's rim, cheering you on praying for you, pulling for you, intervening on your behalf, and waiting with open arms at the valley's end. Sometimes, they will even break the rules and walk beside you...Or come in and carry you out. Girlfriends, daughters, granddaughters, daughters-in-law, sisters, sisters-in-law, Mothers, Grandmothers, aunties, nieces, cousins, and extended family, all bless our life! The world wouldn't be the same without women, and neither would I. When we began this adventure called womanhood, we had no idea of the incredible joys or sorrows that lay ahead. Nor did we know how much we would need each other. Every day, we need each other still. Pass this on to all the women who help make your life meaningful. I just did. Short and very sweet: There are more than twenty angels in this world. Ten are peacefully sleeping on clouds. Nine are playing. And one is reading this blog at this moment.

My Dream Job “The Dorcheat Historical Association Museum, Inc.”

Click on Pictures to enlarge!
For those of you that know me the following statement is the way I describe my self; “If it is old, rusty, paint peeling off, buried or will not crank, I have something to do with it!” In 2007, I was finally after nearly 50 years on this earth able to find my dream job. I believe it is not how much money you make but how much you enjoy what you do that is important in life. So in that respect I am finally where I need to be.
In January 2007, after several attempts by the Dorcheat Historical Association to get me involved helping them raise money, I went to work for them. As some of you know I had just about volunteered myself into the poor house and I just couldn’t do anything else and work selling cars too. So I went to the association President; Mr. Thad Andress and asked for a job. That same day a meeting of association board members was held and I was hired. I was so excited and thrilled to be able to finally do the things that I love, plan events and to help preserve history and raise awareness of our history in Webster Parish.
The Dorcheat Historical Association Museum wasn’t even open yet and I went to work the next day trying to figure out how to raise money, awareness and gain support from our community. Six months later after much hard work from many, many people we opened the doors, to what I think is one of the best local museums around. When a new visitor walks in the door, usually the first word out of their mouth is “WOW”!
With the direction of Museum Exhibit designer local artist Larry Milford has transformed our building at 116 Pearl Street into a “step back in time”. It reminds me of going into some of the exhibits at Disney World. We are first class and have Larry Milford to thank for a lot of it. It truly is a work of art from the front door to the back door. It is also a huge work in progress and will be for quite some time.
Our museum is a timeline of our parish. We start with our earliest inhabitants the Indians and move on to our pioneer families and early settlements. The importance of cotton to our area is highlighted with one of the last square bales from the area. We even have a log house inside the museum that is listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. From there we have the Civil War and Reconstruction, Black History, Historic Homes, Famous People (too many to even list in this story) Education, Disasters, Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Churches, Fire and Police, Commerce and Theaters just to name a few of our wonderful exhibits that are in the works. Sound effects and live footage add to your overall museum visit.
Funding is always an issue with museums. We have been fortunate so far to have some generous local support and also big support from the Webster Parish Convention and Visitors Bureau. Historic venues are one of the biggest tourism draw in most states and Louisiana is no exception. We now have a place for visitors to come. One day soon will have a theater room, equipped with surround sound and a large screen monitor to view educational and historic presentations. We are so excited about the plans for this room we can hardly wait to get started on it. We have had several financial benefactors designate there money for this new room.
Other fundraising projects include our two cookbooks. Our first cookbook “A Taste of Yesterday” not only has 400 recipes it includes historic pictures and history of Webster Parish. This first book sold over 500 copies in 10 days when it first hit the shelves in 2007. In 2008 our second book told of early education of Webster parish “A Taste Of Class” was just as big of a hit as our first book. In fact I think now people will expect a new book from us every year. These books have been given as gifts to a few people you may have heard of; President Bush, Allison Krauss, Secretary of State Jay Dardenne. I have mailed books all over the country! We still have a few available and you can go to our web site http://www.museuminminden.blogspot.com/ to see the information about them and the rest of the exciting things going on at the museum.
This year the Minden Press Herald voted the museum the number 10 item in the top 10 things that happened in 2008. To me that was extremely exciting. One of the reasons we were voted in the top 10 is the monthly events that started in March of 2008 and ran until November of 2008. These second Monday of the month events are called “A Night for the Museum” and are held at Christopher’s located just around the corner from the museum at 615 Main Street in Minden, Louisiana, right in the heart of Minden’s Historic Downtown area. These events take place at 6:00 P.M. with refreshments and socializing first and at 6:30 our guest speaker begins. These historic events have featured two men that had grandfathers that fought in the Civil War, one gentleman that began his love of the railroad at 16, a local author of a book written about a 1916 murder, the Bossier Parish Historian, the Webster Parish Historian, a trip down memory lane back to the 1950s, a touching night filled with stories about the immigrant families that came to our area with nothing but a few dollars, WWII Veterans and much more.
January 12, 2009 our second season began with WWII Veteran Mr. John S. Willis. This 90 year old veteran flew over 30 amazing missions in WWII. February’s focus on our Black History and Dr. Roy G. Phillips’ amazing research of his family back to Africa and his work on our Black History exhibit will be an important night to remember. More speakers are lined up for the year so you don’t want to miss a single one. If you do miss one, we have a DVD available for $10 each of our speakers. You can read about our events also on our web site and in our new Newsletter “Legacies and Legends”. If you aren’t on our mailing list please give me a call at 318-423-0192 and I will add you to our data base.
If you have items that you think would be of interest to the museum please drop by or give me a call. The museum hours are Closed on Monday, Open Tuesday – Friday 10 A.M. – 1 P.M. closed from 1-2 for lunch and back from 2 P.M. – 4 P.M. Saturday Hours are 10 A.M. – Noon. We are also open for special meetings and group tours by appointment. Cost is $4.00 Adults $2.00 Children with special group rates available.
Something is always happening at the museum. Remember this is not my museum it is your museum so help us make history happen in 2009. For more information visit http://www.museuminminden.blogspot.com/

I HAVE TO LOSE AT LEAST 40LBS. BY MAY

It was the month after Christmas and all through the house nothing would fit me, not even a blouse. The cookies I'd nibbled, the eggnog I'd taste, at the holiday parties had gone to my waist. When I got on the scales there arose such a number! When I walked to the store (less a walk than a lumber). I'd remember the marvelous meals I'd prepared; The gravies and sauces and beef nicely rared, the wine and the rum balls, the bread and the cheese and the way I'd never said, "No Thank you, please." As I dressed myself in my husband's old shirt and prepared once again to do battle with dirt. I said to myself, as I only can "you can't spend a winter disguised as a man!" So---away with the last of the sour cream dip, get rid of the fruit cake, every cracker and chip every last bit of food that I like must be banished till all the additional ounces have vanished. I won't have a cookie----not even a lick. I'll want only to chew on a long celery stick. I won't have hot biscuits, or corn bread or pie, I'll munch on a carrot and quietly cry. I'm hungry, I'm lonesome and life is a bore, but isn't that what January is for? Unable to giggle, no longer a riot. Happy New Year to all and to all a good diet!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well it is official. I am determined to lose at least 40lbs. this year. I would like to loose it by May but if I don't I must not give up. It took TEN years to get to this point and so whatever it takes. I am watching OPRAH now and she is talking about her weight problem. I spent $200 on healthy food the other day. It seems to cost more to eat better! Please say a prayer for me if you are reading this. I have to get healthy. I am not doing ATKINS or Weight Watchers or South Beach! I looked into all of it and have done most of it at one time or another. I have to put me at the top of my priority list instead of everyone else.