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HALLETTSVILLE, TX -Greetings to you in the Roark-Conner Association again. Your invitation to attend our annual gathering and reunion in Chattanooga Oct. 7-9 is enclosed with this newsletter and is ready for your prompt return. I look forward to greeting all of you cousins at the Comfort Inn Suites and Conference Center soon. Your Vice-President, William Witt, of Lexington, KY, with the assistance of Darwin Lane, past president, of Chattanooga, and I have arranged a wonderful array of activities and speakers for the reunion-gathering. You'll find an outline of those activities and plans elsewhere in this issue. As our association's size grows - we now number more than 340 members and more are added each year - we are experiencing some necessary growing pains. We have needed more room for our banquets and Family Forums, as well as streamlined assistance in handling your registrations, book sales, family history displays and membership lists. So you may notice some changes this fall October 7, 8 and 9, but you also will find some familiar aspects. For instance, we will still gather Sunday morning to honor the memory of our ancestors' pioneer church, the Salem Church, and to share a family worship service near the homesteads and graves of our departed ancestors and loved ones. I find it an extraordinary symbolism of the "ties that bind us" as an extended family that we worship at the same place where pioneers Maximilian Haney Conner and Joseph Roark heard prayers and sermons from the 1840s and 1850s. These two families - the Conners and the Roarks - populated Birchwood for many decades; some branches left for new territory, while others stayed. Yet each year, members of those branches return to the sacred grounds of Salem Church to consecrate it again, as a place of Divine worship, and to demonstrate again our willingness to preserve this site. If you have never visited the various cemeteries that the Roark-Conner Association preserves in the Birchwood area, take time this reunion on Sunday afternoon to visit the Roark Cemetery, Cookston Cemetery or Conner Cemetery; Bald Hill Cemetery, Birchwood Baptist and Birchwood Methodist are also sites where family members are buried. Your contributions to help with the maintenance and preservation of the cemeteries have been used wisely over the last few years; your help in the future will continue to be appreciated. If you have never attended a cemetery work day, perhaps because of the distance or physical exertion required, then give thanks - as I have - that several Birchwood area members are able and willing to help with cemetery care. We all owe them all a round of applause. Other historical sites of Birchwood-Salem may be gone, but they are not forgotten. Birchwood Elementary, where we will eat our catered lunch Sunday, has seen many Roark and Conner descendants over the years as students and teachers. Near to Salem Church is the privately-owned Joseph Roark Homestead and Grasshopper Creek. Hiwassee Campground, where early settlers worshipped, and Rutherford School, now the home of Birchwood's Masonic Lodge, are historical sites still preserved. I never miss a chance to visit Birchwood, when I'm in the Chattanooga area, and I hope you'll join us for all three days' events.  As we approach Christmas, you don’t have to be reminded that in this world we experience many pressures and demands on our time. It is often difficult to balance our lives and give adequate attention to our relationships. I trust that we will all step out of our busy schedules during this season to the point where our love increases and overflows toward one another and everyone else. The significance of Christmas also demands that our homes be filled with the fullness of the Savior’s presence, and that all who enter are made to feel welcome. My prayer is that every Roark and Conner family in our association circle, and your extended families, experience a blessed Christmas with a new sense of fulfillment and enjoyment like never before. How long has it been since you met a cousin for the first time? Weren’t you excited and elated over making a new acquaintance? A relative – of all people! An opportunity awaits you now to meet more cousins if you have never attended a Roark-Conner reunion. Let your curiosity take you on a journey – to Chattanooga – on Columbus Day weekend, October 8-10! You will, no doubt, meet cousins you never expected to see. It will be an experience on which you can look back and be proud you were a part of our 2004 gathering. As indicated in the January and June newsletters, our location for the 46th Annual Reunion is the Comfort Inn Conference Center and Suites, 6710 Ringgold Road, Chattanooga, TN 37412. Phone: (423) 893-7979, Fax: (423) 893-9960, E-mail: comfortinn@comcast.net. Be sure to mention the Roark-Conner Association when making your reservations to get the special room rates which are the same as last year. Please also be sure to make your reservations before September 20 in order to be assured a room. You will find elsewhere in this NEWSLETTER a sneak peak of Reunion 2004. Elizabeth Conner, our Vice President, and I have been involved in planning the weekend since early April. We have a host of cousins who are assisting with all facets of the activities and programs planned. You will have an opportunity to meet all of them. We are counting on your being here – it will not be the same without you! A major highlight of the weekend will be the family presentations on Saturday morning. These include the life and descendants of Martha Jane Conner Witt with Bill Witt as lead presenter and John B. Roark with David C. Roark as lead presenter. These presenters have been working more than a year on this segment of our reunion on forbears we never knew but whose legacy is still a part of that driving force in drawing our families together. You must not miss this! Please note from the schedule of Friday, October 8, that a “Snack Supper” is on tap again at 6:00 P.M. This is being provided by a group of Tennessee Gals, so plan to eat with us just prior to our opening session. Another tradition at our reunions has been the display of family pictures, memorabilia, and artifacts. This tradition will be continued this year, and Zenobia and David Booth will be present again Friday afternoon to assist with the display of your articles. I strongly encourage your sharing of these items for display again which, on an annual basis, has been enjoyed so much by all in attendance, especially those attending for the first time. Your Board will be meeting Friday morning and afternoon of October 8. A major portion of that meeting will be spent on discussion/deliberation on future long term projects for our association. You will recall this was a part of my article in the June issue of our Newsletter in which I requested input/suggestions from our membership to be passed on to our officers or board members. It is not too late now to receive your ideas. Please share any you have before our board meeting on October 8. Our board will be grateful for your input. In closing, I wish to state I am looking forward to our reunion. I also wish to emphasize that heritage is built on legacies left to us by our forebears. The Roarks and Conners certainly have a rich heritage from forebears who embraced the ideals that formed the very core of our nation. As remnants of these ambitious, brave, hardy and dedicated ancestors we must ever be vigilant to maintain and share these legacies with current and future generations. I believe the focus of this reunion will be a major thrust toward that goal. I’ll see you in Chattanooga October 8-10! Please also remember there will not be any strangers present, just cousins whom you have never met! By the time you read this article, can you believe we are in the sixth month of 2004? My, how time flies, especially when you pass three score and ten! I believe this is a poignant reminder that we need to be furiously about that for which we hope to make a difference in our allotted time here. In addition, we need never forget who we are, our great heritage and the important legacies left by our forebears. Your Board of Directors met in Chattanooga in a split session, for the first time, on April 2 and 3. Spring board meetings, held on Friday evenings in recent years, were usually 4 – 5 hours in length; hence, the decision to have a split session. Too, a work session was always scheduled on Saturday morning following the Friday evening board meeting, weather permitting, on the Conner Cemetery. A later work period on the last Saturday in April was scheduled for the Roark Cemetery. Because of prior work allowing for easier maintenance of these cemeteries, and the recent adoption of the Cookston Cemetery which is also on the Ronald Johnson Farm, the “locals” felt they should maintain them, along with the Salem Church site, as a token trade-off for all those officers and board members who bear major expense in travel, lodging, and time for the spring meeting. Thus, the added Saturday morning session of the Board is a much needed arrangement which will, hopefully, allow the body time to consider some approaches and recommended projects or programs to increase interest in, and the impact of, our association for all of our members. Your Vice President, Liz Conner, is working toward an eventful and gratifying program for our Reunion this fall. It is not too early to plan and reserve Columbus Day weekend, October 8-10, for attendance at our 46th Annual Reunion in Chattanooga. An agenda and hotel reservation information will be included in our September 1 issue of our NEWSLETTER. You will find elsewhere in this NEWSLETTER an article by our Treasurer and Membership Chair, Carrol Mathews, regarding the cost of publishing and mailing the NEWSLETTER to all members, many of whom are not current in dues payment. Of course, the Association relies on dues to cover the cost of the three issues per year; January, June and September. We have a considerable shortfall in this account. Please help us reconcile this now by sending your dues payment if you are not current in this regard. Please also accept my thanks for doing this so we can continue to get the NEWSLETTER to everyone! I trust you are accessing our WEBSITE which is so ably maintained by our WEBMASTER, David Smith, son of Marylyn Davenport and Doyle Smith and grandson of the late Gertrude Roark Davenport. There have been several deaths in our extended family as well as some serious illnesses. Going to the WEBSITE is one way of keeping up with these occurrences in our larger family. To all with losses, sincere sympathies are extended and my best wishes for recoveries for those ill. I would like to encourage any member with a thought or idea about a future project or program for our Association to pass that information to any member of our Board, Officer, or directly to me as your president. Suggestions are solicited, needed, welcomed, and will be taken under advisement at our October 8 Board Meeting. We have already scheduled increased time for that session to consider future projects/programs. Please accept my thanks in advance for your sharing thoughts. In closing, I just want to emphasize that no matter where we go or whom we visit, distance isn’t a factor if we clear our schedules and some of the clutter in our lives. Making time for the things which should be important to us helps make life more fulfilling. Try to set aside Columbus Day Weekend this year to reconnect with cousins special to you and meet some, perhaps, for the first time. This will bring a world of joy into your life – and theirs! What's New | Contact Us | Presidents Page | Roark-Conner Store | Cousin to Cousin | | Return Home | Great Links | Calendar | History Page | Happenings | Roark-Conner Association Family Newsletters | |
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