As the president of the Mississippi Firefighters Auxiliary, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of those in Natchez and Adams County that made our visitors feel so welcome and at home. I would also like to thank all the merchants and members of the auxiliary that donated an item or items to be raffled off at this year’s 76th Mississippi Fire Chiefs and Firefighters Association Conference, which was at the Natchez Convention Center May 30 through June 2.

A special thank you to the Isle of Capri for allowing us to have a conference planning meeting back in March so that we could ensure that our conference activities would please our out of town members.

The Mississippi Firefighters Auxiliary was able to raise $1,052 to be divided between the Mississippi Burn Camp and Hope Hollow Ministries to assists them with some of their needs. This could not have been accomplished without the help and generosity of the state firefighter, fire chiefs, auxiliary members and guests who bought raffle tickets from us and our helpers Suzy and Maryann Ray. We great appreciate their support for two very good causes.

I would like to give a few special thank yous to these individulas that helped make the weekend fun and relaxing for our executive board and other auxiliary members that were able to attend this year’s conference. Thank you to Don Estes for the excellent Thursday night tour of the Natchez City Cemetery. This had been requested by the executive board members. Thank you to our wonderful bus driver Greg with the Natchez Bus Terminal.

Thank you to Lacey with the Grand Hotel for helping coordinate our fun soap making activity at Historic Jefferson College with Toni on Friday and for tagging in along with us to make sure we got where we needed to be all weekend. Emily at Pilgrimage Tours heled set up our lunch at the Carriage House and the tour of Stanton Hall afterwards. And I cannot forget to thank our wonderful bus driver for those two days, Brian, with the Natchez Transit Authority. He was an angel, and we thought he was great.

It has been my pleasure to serve as the president of this fine organization this past year, and I’m honored to have been re-elected for another year. Our auxiliary is here to continue to serve Mississippi firefighters and those affected by fire throughout the state.

 

Debbie Owens is the president of the Mississippi Firefighters Auxiliary.