I owe a great deal to the man at the podium in the photo on the left: Art McDole. He was the director of Communications for Monterey County until his retirement (after 41 years of county employment) in 1990. He hired me as a Communications Dispatcher in 1977. He promoted me to shift supervisor in 1979 and finally to Center Supervisor in 1987. His retirement is probably one of the reasons I was "able" to leave Monterey County instead of spending my entire career there (Trust me; without Art, it's not the same there any more!) It's been through networking opportunities in APCO - provided by Art while I worked for him - that I've been able to make valuable contacts and eventually join the Highway Patrol, where I now work.
After this presentation, President Joe McNeil said, "And may it be a long, long time before we ever refer to this honor as 'The Art McDole Memorial Award."
For a couple of years now, Bob Sawyer has been assisting me as guest-host during the AOL Dispatch Chat Sessions when I have been unable to make some sessions. We've communicated online, extensively, and reviewed each other's HTML work on our web-sites. I was thrilled to actually meet "Hut" and drag him along to a variety of places as my escort. (Or maybe it was me that was HIS escort? Whatever...)
But before this picture was taken, on the first morning of the conference, one of my good friends and I knocked on Bob's hotel room door (covering the peep-hole, of course) and invited him down to breakfast with the words, "Toto! I don't think we're in Kansas any longer!"
Imagine opening your hotel room door at the gawd-awful hour of 7:30 a.m., when you're not a morning person to begin with, and being greeted by two rather ...... buxom.... giggling women you've never met in person. (Joanne didn't have the balloons on her head at that particular time, though!)
© 1996 - 1999
~Copyright information~
gryeyes@redshift.com
