JJ Johnston

Summer is coming and we are on hiatus until our October meeting. June is our big event at the Snoqualmie Railway Museum (see articles on pages 4 & 7). No clinic in July or August; September is our PNR convention. Our May meeting, attended by over 30 folks, heard an amazing and humorous clinic about operations on the Apple Route presented by Dave Liesse (of the famous Liesse model railroad family). Dave’s photos, his handout, and his discussion were quite informative for those of us needing more knowledge about operations. Thanks, Dave! We also took a special moment of silence and prayer to commemorate the life of modeling legend, Brian Ellerby, who recently passed. Brian owned Evergreen Scale Models, Inc. and meant much to our hobby. God bless you, Brian.

Our Model of the Month included entries from CJ Turner, John Salzetti, Jim Sabol, Rob Jones, Bob Beise and our winner, George Chambers. George shared his marvelous model of an S scale house.

I would like to thank all in our group for their continuing attendance at our meetings. We set an attendance record of 52 a few months ago and we continue to be blessed by the involvement of all our clinicians, who give so generously of their time and talents, and our own group volunteers. I would like to thank in particular CJ Turner for always having the coffee brewing and a wonderful assortment of hand-selected donuts each month. Clay Hanson has done a great job being our greeter/ambassador and making sure everyone has a ballot for the door prize drawings and Model of the Month voting. Many thanks to Stu Rogers for bringing the video library and for single-handedly converting all those VHS tapes to DVDs. We are always indebted to Roger Ferris and Bobj Berger for bringing their estate sale items to us at extremely attractive pricing, for hauling it all in and out, and for adding their anecdotal comments to our meetings. I also appreciate 4D Superintendant Dennis Hill’s attendance at our meetings, along with our 4D treasurer, Sherman Stevens. Ed Liesse serves in so many ways, we thank him and wife Gay for all the time they give our Division. We truly appreciate the support we get from MMRs Max Maginness, CJ Riley, and Di Voss (who also serves as NMRA Conformance and Standards Chairman). Of course, special thanks to our friend and modeler Steve Depolo, owner of Inside Gateway Hobby Store in Bellevue, for his very generous donations of our valuable door prizes each month. Please thank Steve when you are in his store. The Eastside Get Together rocks the house.