John Buechner: “Thank you, Lou, and I thank you for your kind personal remarks. Mr. Speaker, the association has some other wonderful…”

“Thank you, Lou, and I thank you for your kind personal remarks. Mr. Speaker, the association has some other wonderful things that we have done. I want to thank Lou for the work, obviously, that he has done, the invaluable leadership. But we would like to highlight a few of the other activities. Just so the people up in the gallery understand who we are, we are former Members of Congress. One day a year, the Speaker is good enough to allow this Chamber to be used for us for our annual report back to the Congress of the things that we have been allowed to do in our facility as former Members. In October of last year, the association hosted a fall meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. We brought together a number of former Members and their spouses and spent a long weekend in my beloved home State. Our main focus was to go to the Truman memorial library in Independence. We had the great opportunity to listen to former Member of Congress Ken Hechler of West Virginia who started his career as an adviser to President Truman. It was a great but an informal way of connecting with old friends and have the association represented in a place other than Washington. We have had a golf tournament, picnics, a Christmas party for the first time in 2005. I guess you have to call it a holiday party. The association benefits tremendously from the efforts and leadership of many people.”