Kjære Venner,

  This is my first “Fra Formannen” to you as your newly elected president. I hope to serve you well!

  It is an honor for me, as the 26^th President of the Valdres Samband, to be included with so many who have represented the Samband over the years: Earl Evenstad, Doris Hayes, Michael Bergan, June Adele Dolva, David Kringstad, Leland Pederson, Gertrude Nearman, Sam Sorenson, Hilda Kringstad, Arne Rosenlund, and Carl Narvestad to name a few. I have known all of these people, and I hope to continue the core values that have been instilled by them and all of the other past presidents upon the Samband, and continue to keep the Valdres Samband growing as the strong organization that it is. It remains the oldest and biggest Bygdelag in America.

  I first became a memberof the Valdres Samband in 1981, and in 1986 I became a director on the board, and most recently served as your Vice President. My Valdres ancestors came from Vang – my father was William Skogman and my mother was Gladys Holien. My wife Diane and I were 19 when we married in 1966. We have two married sons, one living in San Antonio, Texas, and the other lives in Brainerd, Minnesota. I have two grandsons in San Antonio, and a granddaughter in Brainerd.

  Diane and I attended many Stevner together since 1981. It is always nice to see new member faces as well as the familiar face of one of our Samband friends and sadly some of those familiar faces are no longer with us, but their memory is as they helped grow the Samband and they helped in keeping it strong.

  We have a lot of new faces on the board this year, but we are a hard working board, with the same foreseeing vision into the future for the Samband that has been in place since 1899. We recently held our first fall board meeting together in St. Cloud and we had a full agenda, but we completed that first task. You can read more about the meeting in the minutes found later in this issue. We talked briefly about the upcoming Stevne in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, coming up June 14^th –16th, 2012. We were last in Eau Claire in 2003, and had a wonderful time thanks to Doris Hayes and her planning committee. Because of this we were able to plan the 2012 Stevne with ease. Thank you Doris for all of the hard work you did in 2003. It was a monumental task! We hope many of you will be able to attend the Stevne in June. We will have more information available as we finalize things for the May issue of the Budstikken.

  On behalf of all of the members of the Valdres Samband, we extend our sympathies, and offer their prayers for the families and friends of those lost, the wounded, and all others affected by the tradgedies in Oslo and Utøya.

  By the time you read this, December will be at our doorstep, the holidays just around the corner, and Old Man Winter will be here for a visit.

  On behalf of the entire Valdres Samband Board and myself, Vi ønsker deg en riktig God Jul og et Godt Nyttår (We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year).

 

Beste Hilsen,

Bob Skogman

Valdres Samband President.