Blackhawk Golden ‘K’ General Meeting
Minutes
February 26th, 2025
Roger Willeford presiding, called the meeting to order with a ring of the bell at 9:30AM.
An Executive Board meeting occurred today.
33 members were in attendance today.
The meeting was led with the Pledge of Allegiance and the singing of America, the National Anthem.
Invocation: Bob Knudson, mentioning fellowship and the children.
Raffle: Bob Knudson oversaw the ticket sales and drawing this week.
The weekly pot was $14 and the big (Joker) pot was $61.
Maury Frey drew a ticket from the bucket, ticket number 7108. Congratulations to the winner, Dale Henning.
The deck of cards has 47/53 cards remaining. Dale drew the K♣.
Roger Willeford thanks greeters , Bruce Jorenby and X, rafflemaster Bob Knudson and server Maury Frey.
Happy Box: Dale Henning announced he is happy because he won the raffle. He will donate the winnings to the Truck on Ice charity.
Lorena announced she is happy because of the Kiwanis group and our fellowship.
Tom Neumann announced he is happy because he has a new car (an Audi).
Jim Farrell announced he is happy because of the UW Badger NCAA wins.
Roger Willeford announced that a guest is attending today, Jan Willeford (Roger’s wife)
Roger Willeford announced that a guest is attending today, Doris Henning (Dale’s wife).
Jokes: Steve Skelly had a good joke about dropping things in the toilet.
Member Health: Maury Frey had a status update on Glenn Disrude, who will be back next week.
Bob Knudson had a status update on Dave Peterson, who is in quarantine until a procedure until Friday.
Other Announcements: John Janes spoke upon recent blood drives, which gathered 46 pints and more the next day.
Committee Reports: John Janes announced next week is the Truck on Ice drawing!
A new member was inducted today. Welcome Jenny Turco! Greg introduced her, and ‘When Kiwanis Calls’ was sung.
Jim Farrell introduced the day’s speaker, Bob Block. Bob is a member of the Oregon, WI Historical Society, and took an interest in American prisoner of war camps after finding an old wooden crate from January, 1946 with materials pertaining to Camp Swift, Texas.
Bob presented on Wisconsin’s WWII prisoner of war camps. The camps began in early 1942 and existed until June of 1946. At their height, the 39 PoW camps in Wisconsin had 26,000 people in the state alone, and over 425,000 nationwide. Ages in the camp ranged from soldiers as young as 14 years old to age sixty-five.
Wisconsin’s largest prisoner of war camp was Camp McCoy. It contained 30-35 buildings. The camp was enclosed by an eight foot fence, around an area filled with guard dogs that were trained in such a way as to present issues to all including guards.
Bob had a great deal of interesting information, including stories about fifteen separate locations. They included:
A story about multiple Germans escaping from camp Billy Mitchell, for which several took a boat with the intent to pick up a waterway 30 miles away. Every one was re-captured.
A prisoner of war at Camp Hortonville, who missed a prisoner bus and wasn’t noticed, then chased the bus a fair distance until it stopped and collected him.
Campe Janesville, who let farmers borrow prisoner for a work day, where one had a 9-year-old girl driving the prisoners to and from the farm.
Camp Sheboygan, which used a haunted asylum as its camp, which exists and is haunted today.
Bob encouraged everyone to have a look at a book that inspired him, Stalag Wisconsin, by Betty Cowley.
Bob’s talk was applauded by all.
Jim Farrell thanked Bob Block for speaking and presented him with a Kiwanis Parker pen.
Roger Willeford adjourned the meeting with a ring of the bell at 11AM.
Minutes by Ryan Lewis.
Credit: Ryan Lewis, photographs.
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