Neighbors and entire community benefit from involvement

By Darla Buckhannon

Happy birthday to Connie Hamilton, Samantha Hendrix, David Petitt, Craig Glenzy, Mark Ballard, Brenda Coomer, Debbie Davie, Debbie Gaines, Kevin McCallum, Sandy Spane, Jackie Heeb, Haley Glastetter, Kaitlin Glastetter, Bill Hamm, Ron Whitaker, Kyle Applewhite, Eric Hanselman, Stella Jackson, Billy Gene Goodman, Bill Hanlon, Mason Lynn, Abby Hahn and Lee Powers. Also, Betty Dorn, Betty Eftink, Alex Gonzaque, Brittney Graham, David Hicks, David Kean, Rebecca Sams, Wilfred Urhahn, Franklin Welter and Marcella Westrich.

Happy anniversary to Davey and Misty Davis and Ralph and Fimble Enderle.

Tomorrow is Presidents' Day, so banks and post offices are closed along with Chaffee public schools and City Hall. An exciting week at Chaffee High School as the Mogul Dance is this Friday at 6:30 p.m.

Local agenda

The FCCLA and FBLA are sponsoring the 11th annual Race for the Cure 5K at 9 a.m. Saturday at Chaffee High School. The proceeds go toward medical bills and expenses for a local Chaffee family who has been affected by cancer. The entry fee on the day of the race is $15 from 8 to 8:45 a.m. For more information, please call Travis Calkins at (573) 579-4939 or (573) 887-3226. Since we are so close to the pre-registration deadline (actually it was yesterday), just maybe Mr. Calkins can squeeze you in for the $10 fee, postrace breakfast or at least a T-shirt!

The Chaffee Chamber of Commerce has launched its 2017 membership drive. Whether as an individual or a business, the Chamber invites your involvement to help our city grow, prosper and progress into a beautiful place to raise a family or own a business. Membership is $15 for individuals and $35 to $100 for businesses, depending on annual sales. The Chamber sponsors important community projects such as FBLA, college scholarships, residence of the month, German Day stand, Christmas street decorations and parade, Helping Hands, tree plantings and citywide yard sales. Dues and donations can be mailed to the Chamber of Commerce, PO Box 35, Chaffee, MO 63740.

The Chamber meets the second Monday of each month at noon for lunch. Various businesses sponsor the meetings and provide lunch. New officers were installed at this month's meeting for 2017. They are: Ken Latham, president; Jennifer Lynn, vice president; HB Rice, treasurer; and Alan Pendergrass, secretary. The next business meeting will be at 5 p.m. March 8 at the Bank of Advance in Chaffee.

Sniffing out love

We hope everyone had a lovely Valentine's Day! My sisters and I always recall our dad placing a red heart-shaped box of Valentine candy for each of his five sweethearts at our places at the dinner table. Of course our mother always got the biggest, fanciest box.

As we got older, our sister was being courted by Bill Hawkins, who would later become her husband. He always got her a big, beautiful box of Valentine candy, and although sisters' bedrooms were off limits, it was very tempting to sneak into Carolyn's room to see if we could find the heart-shaped box of candy. After some careful snooping, we soon discovered it in her hope chest! Of course there was no way we would dare eat a piece, but just finding it, opening the box ever so carefully to see the pretty chocolates and quickly putting it back in place after taking a good whiff of the delicious scent of chocolate made our venture quite exciting.

Another exciting venture Jo and I took on was sneaking into Ruth Ann's room. Isn't that what all little sisters do? Sneak into their older sister's room just to look and discover? Many of you ladies may remember the fragrance Shalimar. In the 1950s, it came in a stunning round flask-like, 7-inch bottle with an elegant glass stopper. Ruth wouldn't have noticed a subtle volume change but would have smelled it had we used it. We wouldn't have anyway at our young age, but we could remove the stopper and smell the fragrance before rushing out of her room. Now, Carolyn would have probably scolded us about our exploring, but there would have been lots of noise in our house had Ruth discovered us or even suspected that we had been in her room.

Final thoughts

Remember to tell those special people in your life that you love them -- those three words mean so very much.

And then ...

Then there were local anti-Valentine's Day parties for singles.