A Message from Outgoing StLGS President, Karen Goode

With the election of new StLGS officers behind us, current StLGS president, Karen Goode, will be stepping down from her whirlwind four years in office. For those who may not know, Karen was vice-president of programs when COVID shut down our society for most of 2020. We had a Family History Conference featuring noted genealogist Judy Russell already planned and a full schedule of meetings and classes on our calendar, since, like most, we had no idea how long it would take to resume normal operations. When it became clear that business as usual was not going to happen, Karen grabbed the reins, gathered a committee around her, and plunged us into learning how to do Zoom webinars. Her foresight saved StLGS from what might have been a devastating blow. After Karen assumed the presidency, hybrid meetings were an ingrained part of our programing, opening up almost all of our events to those who cannot attend in person. In addition, Karen led us through an office overhaul that included moving tons of furniture for a long-overdue paint job and new carpeting, and then, just a few months later, weeks of leaky roof damage and plastic drapery covering most of our work space. She was clearly the right person at the right time for the right job!

Officer Election Results, Exciting Website News, and Thank You to Our Supporters!

Thanks to all of you who voted in the election for our 2025–2026 officers. With unanimous votes, we will have co-presidents for the next two years as Kathy Franke and Jeani Ward share that position. Jim Yochim has been reelected as vice president for membership, and Debbie Benoit will take over as secretary beginning in January. We’d like to say a huge thank you to both Karen Goode and Cindy Finnegan, our current president and our society's secretary, who are ready to step down and hand the reins to our newly elected officers. Cindy has prepared board meeting notes, tackled dozens of thank you letters, scanned years' worth of old documents, and assisted at many of our events. As president for the past four years, Karen has managed to guide us successfully through one disaster after another. Her tenure began with a complete shutdown due to the pandemic, which led us to learning from scratch how to set up Zoom and hybrid meetings. After the office opened again, and we settled back into a more normal routine, it was time for a massive cleanup so we could get new carpet and a much-needed paint job. When all was finally sparkling clean and everything in place, we were faced with water damage due to a badly leaking roof, which shut us down for weeks again, and now, Karen is leading us through a complete redesign of our website. (More on that in just a bit.) Her leadership skills and her determination and perseverance in the face of one obstacle after another have kept our society on a steady course during some incredibly difficult times. We thank both Cindy and Karen for their hard work and look forward to seeing both of them enjoying some new adventures in the coming year.

And now for some exciting news about our StLGS website  . . .