THE TRUMPETER - May 2023

RWOP Newsletter Editor: Joan Lesko, RWOP VP Communications, contact@rwop.info

In May, we celebrate one of the most important days of recognition, Mother's Day. The most significant role a woman may ever play is motherhood. Jacqueline Kennedy once said, "The greatest responsibility is your children. If my children turned out badly, I'd feel that nothing I had done was worthwhile." While this quote is notable, in today's world we are now fighting to keep some Mothers from randomly killing their babies by abortion. As women are the only individuals who can biologically become Mothers, God instilled in most of them a powerful sense of protection for their children. The unborn child is worthy of our concern and protection just as much as a newborn infant or adult. We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life - the unborn - without diminishing the value of all human life. Are there instances of pregnancy linked to rape and incest? Yes, there are crimes against women in which the perpetrator should be criminally punished. 

All too often, the right to life of the unborn child has been tragically lost in a tidal wave of cries for the "right to choose". There is a lack of personal responsibility in women to protect themselves from getting pregnant if they are going to be sexually active. Women do have a choice, another "A" word that seems to be ignored is Abstinence. The third "A" word that is ignored is Adoption, but unfortunately, more often than not the only choice a woman is given is abortion. So, if your Mother is still with you, please reach out and honor her for not only raising you up but for giving you life.

All of RWOP's monthly luncheons have been special events. However, if you missed last month's luncheon, you missed a great one. Congressman Eli Crane was one of our featured speakers.

Click on the video thumbnail above to view his presentation.

RWOP purchased two Bottle Breachers from Bottle Breachers USA, (a successful company Congressman Crane started and has since sold) along with two sets of wooden coasters. We asked and Congressman Crane graciously agreed to autograph the wooden coasters, combining them with the Bottle Breachers. We had two sets to auction off at a live auction during our luncheon, the proceeds of which would go to start RWOP's 2024 Scholarship Fund. I want to personally THANK Congressman Crane and send our RWOP THANK YOU to Chad DeVries and Lee Lilinhall who were the high bidders for both sets of Bottle Breachers and the coaster sets, for an auction total of $1,800. To top it off, RWOP's 50/50 winner, who was Jane Anne Shimizu, with a prize of $340 donated her winnings back to our RWOP Scholarship Fund, for a grand total going to Scholarships of $2,140 being raised!! I have said it many times, RWOP is so blessed to have such generous members who continually give back to support our club! 

Also for viewing, Congressman Crane has made available to us the video entitled "20 Lawmakers Stood Up to the Washington Establishment. This is Their Story!" The video is eleven minutes long, but well worth viewing.

Our other featured speaker was Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne. Mr. Horne gave an inspiring speech on everything he has done since taking office to stop the former Democrat superintendent's progressive agenda and replaced it with a policy of striving for academic excellence as a priority in Arizona schools. 

Click on the video thumbnail above to view his presentation.

Christine Accurso, Executive Director of the Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) gave an update on the popularity and increasing number of parents who have and are continuing to apply for ESA money in order to exercise their parental rights of educating their children with a school that best fits the needs of each child.

Since 2017, at our May luncheon, RWOP will host and honor our local law enforcement officers for their, as well as their families sacrifices to "Protect and Serve" our communities. Yavapai County has always supported our law enforcement!! We will have law enforcement representatives and their guests from Prescott, Prescott Valley, Chino Valley, Yavapai Tribal Police, and the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office. I started the law enforcement recognition luncheon in 2017 to honor my late husband and all law enforcement officers in our community. 

A special "Shout Out" to the Yavapai Tribal Police and their bomb dog Bently, pictured here with Lt. Dan Smith who works to keep us safe every month.



May is also the time we present our 2023 RWOP High School Republican scholarship recipients and their guests. We will have seventeen, the most scholarship recipients in one year we have ever had, who will be honored and presented on stage to receive their certificates. In addition to receiving their certificates, each scholarship recipient will receive a copy of Nick Adam's (our May featured speaker) FREEDOM VS SOCIALISM booklets along with a pocket copy of our United States Constitution. We are looking forward to a great presentation by him. Mr. Adams is a conservative motivational speaker and founder of the Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness. We are excited to have him speak to our law enforcement and young Republicans!

The Arizona Federation of Republican Women's (AzFRW) 2023 Summer Meeting is fast approaching, taking place at the Prescott Resort from May 18th through May 20th. I am happy to report to you that this event is SOLD OUT! Thank you for supporting this event! Republican Women of Prescott, Region V, and the Republican Women clubs of Region l, which includes Granite Mountain, Yavapai County, Prescott Valley, Flagstaff, and Northeastern Arizona, along with AzFRW, are hosting this year's summer meeting. There is a great line-up of speakers and events for this meeting! Region V and Region l are also hosting the Hospitality Suite at the Resort on Thursday, so if you are attending the meeting, please stop by! 

It will be a great opportunity to meet our state Republican leadership and Republican women from around our state and have a drink, hors d'oeuvres, and dessert. We are anxious to show "Prescott's Hospitality" to our AzFRW state officers, other Arizona Republican women's club presidents, and our sister Republican women members. It is sure to be a great time for all!!

CONGRATULATIONS to Quang Nguyen, our LD1 State Representative for being selected to participate in the 2023 Emerging Legislative Leaders Program! What an honor.

CONGRATULATIONS to Deb McCasland, a long-time member of RWOP, being named "National Trustee of the Year" by the American Association of Community Colleges. I grew up with Deb and our families were friends. Deb is a Yavapai College alumna who has served on the District Governing Board for eight years, the last three as Chair. The award celebrates a trustee who has made significant contributions to the college, demonstrated exceptional leadership, and presided over significant achievements that benefit the college, district, state, system, or foundation. Deb has also demonstrated conservative policies in the oversight of our taxes while supporting Yavapai College.

RWOP's 2023 Main Event, Charlie Kirk and the Patriot Barbie, scheduled on Wednesday, May 17th at the Yavapai College Performing Arts Center, will be here before you know it. Due to popular demand, we have expanded the seating to include the balcony at the Yavapai College Performing Arts Center. THANKS TO ALL who have already purchased tickets! Tell your friends and family there are still seats available. For those of you who are not familiar with The Patriot Barbie, we were honored to have her as our speaker for our RWOP March luncheon where she put together a video including scenes from our RWOP luncheon.

She is a powerful, conservative woman who has a special story to tell. She travels the United States promoting freedom, personal rights, and conservative women's rights. Be sure and get your tickets so you won't miss out on two powerful speakers and their special messages!!

Click on the video thumbnail above!

I have had many requests for more Republican patriotic and armed services jewelry, along with more Trump items, concealed carry purses, and patriotic purses. Please arrive early for our luncheon and stop by our merchandise table and see all of our new items. We have a new selection of sparkly, Republican, and patriotic jewelry. If you have a special request for a certain item, please let our merchandise consultants behind the table know and I will do my best to get it for you. I receive many compliments on my Republican jewelry and I am always asked "Where did I get it?" My reply is "At our RWOP merchandise table!"

I am looking forward to another great RWOP May luncheon and seeing everyone there. Thank you all for your membership in our club. To our many RWOP volunteers, thank you for your tireless efforts in support of our club! I am so grateful for your support for me and for all our club is accomplishing!!

Regards,

Sherrie Hanna

2023 RWOP President

**PLEASE DO NOT MOVE THE NAME CARDS PLACED ON THE LUNCHEON TABLES**

Please note this luncheon will be held on

TUESDAY, May 9, 2023!

LUNCHEON MENU

(Choose one entree)

• Tri-Tip with Red Wine Demi-Glace, Scalloped Potatoes & Roasted Asparagus 

• Chicken Waldorf salad - no nuts

• Vegetable Cobb salad

Dessert: Apple Pie

NO SUBSTITUTIONS ON THE DAY OF THE EVENT

$35 per person​

Reserve your spot online: HERE

Reservations are on a first-come-first-served basis!

A reservation made is a reservation paid...thank you!

To help speed up our check-in process:

• Prepaying for the luncheon is encouraged - online or by check mailed prior to luncheon
• Arrive early and allow time for parking
• No large bills accepted
• Have your payment ready – CASH or CHECK (made payable to RWOP for $35 - already filled out

Tuesday, May 9th RWOP Luncheon

FEATURED SPEAKERS:

FEATURED GUEST SPEAKERS:

Cloudy Days

If anyone knows of a RWOP member or family member that is ill, passed away or just needs a note of encouragement please contact me with their address so a personal card can be mailed.  

Marla Bassler, 480-330-8150 or drop her an email at marlabassler7@gmail.com

Are You Already Volunteering in a School?

Are You Already Volunteering in Our Community to Help Young People and Their Families?

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?”

–Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Are you participating with schools; educational training and/or planning; school fundraisers; museums; religious teachings; Big Brothers, Big Sisters; Boy Scouts; Girl Scouts; CASA of Yavapai County; MatForce; Mock Trials; YMCA; and/or Youth Sports, such as the Wheelhouse and AZ Fellowship of Christian Athletes? If so, please contact Debra McVey to join us as one of our RWOP School Volunteers who contributes towards benefiting our youth and their families.

If you would like to become a school volunteer, RWOP partners with Trinity Christian School and Prescott Unified School District. You will experience intrinsic pride as you use your time and talents assisting preschool through high school students. When the past school year ended May 2021, RWOP members had contributed 6,895 hours to students, teachers, and parents!!

If you are an RWOP member with any questions or you are ready to become involved with either Trinity Christian School or PUSD, please don’t hesitate to contact:

Debra McVey, debramcvey01@gmail.com, or (928) 778-0000.

Assisting young students to succeed allows our members to exhibit living proof of our Republican principles. Our RWOP School Volunteers demonstrate the difference we make to support our children and strengthen our schools as we build a stronger, more vibrant community for all of us!



With appreciation,

Debra McVey

RWOP School Volunteer Chair

debramcvey01@gmail.com

(928) 778-0000

Caring for America - Nancy Grigas

The group, led by Director Rita Bosley, is an all-volunteer organization that provides reading, writing and English tutors to adults in the greater Quad Cities.

The Prescott Valley Library provides an office and tutoring space for the program. Tutors work 1-on-1 with students, ages 18 and up.

The group needs tutors as well as monetary donations, as the average cost to bring a student to a 5th grade reading level is $340. If you’re interested in becoming a tutor please contact Rita at ritabosley@gmail.com or leave a message at 928-759-3049.

Please stop by the Caring for America booth at the May luncheon for more information or to make a donation. And, as always, thank you for your support.

Save the Date:

Membership Directory Pick Up & Community Food Drive for Yavapai County Food Bank

June 12^th is your yearly chance to donate Food to the Yavapai County Food Bank through RWOP and pick up your 2023 RWOP Membership Directory if you haven’t been able to make it to a luncheon, at the Prescott Resort from 11:30 to 2:30.

You just have to drive through the front circle of the Prescott Resort, we will have volunteers to take your food donations and give you your 2023 Membership Directory.

The next newsletter will have a list of the very needed food items that the Food Bank needs going into the summer months. 

As of the printing of this newsletter for the 2023 membership year, we have:

Total Members: 914

Active Members: 720

Associates: 192

Student: 2

2023 Directories are available at the Membership Table, before and after the Luncheon.

New members, please pick up your new member packet and order your name badge and if you already ordered a Badge, please pick it up at the Badge table. 

New Active Members:

DeeAnn Bennett

Cynthia Boyer

Mary E. Bruce

Lupe Cordi

Ginger Frankhouser

Lynda Hinchey

Patricia B. Nolan

Charlotte Claire Perkins

Julie Rose Voss

New Associate Members:

Charles E. Evans

Robert Warren Gallinger

Brenda Metz

Timothy Mitzel

Francean Selman 

Please keep encouraging your friends and family to join RWOP as we are the largest Federated Club in Arizona and the Nation.

Videos & Photos

Select HERE for the 2023 RWOP Luncheon Schedule!!

Inspiring Wheelhouse Tour

About 40 of our wonderful members enjoyed an amazing tour on April 18th. We learned about the multitude of sports activities

available for children and families in the Quad Cities.

Charlie Arnold told the story of his vision. Tim Mitzel, Executive Director for Northern AZ FCA, shared what he and Chad DeVries are doing with their partnership with Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Chad is a Board Advisor and fundraiser for the Wheelhouse and Board Chair for FCA. These gentlemen are making a difference for children in Yavapai County!

https://www.facebook.com/wheelhousesportsaz

https://www.fca.org

There are many volunteer opportunities available too!

Email Jill Martin if you want more information!

Did You Know….that as part of RWOP’s mission to inform and educate, our VP of Education, Jill Martin, has arranged for RWOP members to tour the Yavapai County Recorders and Elections office?  

Pictured: Sue Tatar, Joan Lesko, Posey Nash, Susan Cohen, Sherrie Hanna, Michele Hamer, Judy Blake, and Yavapai County Recorder - Michelle Burchill.

In light of the controversies surrounding our last two statewide elections, our current Yavapai County Recorder, Michelle Burchill, is determined to increase transparency around our county’s elections process. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, after all. Michelle and her team started what they dubbed the “Follow Your Ballot” tour. 

I was able to sign up in advance for one of the tours, along with a number of fellow RWOP members. RWOP has a great relationship with our local elected officials, so Jill was able to facilitate this. The tour was led by Michelle Burchill, our Yavapai County Recorder, and two members of her staff: Laurin Custis, the Director of Elections, and Matt Webber, the Registrar of Voters.

The first part of the tour walks participants through how voter registration works, and the controls that exist around it, e.g., how duplicate or incomplete registrations are identified and cleared, how addresses are verified, and how other states and counties are notified when a registrant is moving to Yavapai County and their prior registration needs to be canceled.

The team showed us the ballot drop box at the Fair Street office and explained the controls around the ballot drop boxes. 

After our voter registrations were checked for validity, we were given a fake ballot to complete. (We voted for our favorite type of cookie!) Then our ballots were batched and counted, always in dual control, with signoffs each step of the way. The team explained how ballots arriving from the county’s drop boxes, vote centers, and the post office are also batched and counted, using exactly the same method. We saw how signature verification is done, how the tabulation machines work, and how rejected ballots are adjudicated. The team even showed us how the vote-counting process is kept entirely separate from other activities in the Elections office, and how it has no access to the Internet.

Michelle has secured approval from the county Board of Supervisors to move the Elections department to the front of the office space her department occupies and to add more windows to the tabulation area so citizen observers can watch the process taking place.

The team mentioned that during the last cycle, they caught 25 voters who had voted in Yavapai County AND another state. Those cases were referred to the Attorney General for prosecution. They do not know if our current AG, Kris Mayes, has acted on the referrals.

Tour participants asked if Yavapai County’s processes could be duplicated around the state. Michelle and the team replied that they couldn’t speak to that, as they don’t know what processes and controls each county currently deploys.

I would like to encourage more RWOP members to sign up for this tour when it's offered. Michelle's assistant, Courtney Comstock, coordinates the tours.  If you would like to sign up for a tour, when it’s offered, you can call Courtney at (928) 442-5707 to be put on her list. 

There is a push by the Federal Government, states & cities to get cars off the road. How are they implementing this in Arizona? 

EPA - In 2015 they adopted new air quality standards for ozone. For the past 30 years Arizona has not achieved ozone levels below 75ppb. The 2015 standard is 70ppb. Most of the ozone in Maricopa County is the result of naturally occurring events or from emissions produced outside of the country. The Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG), the entity responsible for crafting an air quality plan for the region, has publicly acknowledged that the removal of all four million internal combustion engine vehicles in the Phoenix area would not bring Maricopa County into compliance with the ozone standards. MAG is estimating that residents & businesses in Maricopa County need to cut ozone emissions by 50% in one year to comply. Any combination of MAG’s proposed control measures to meet the EPA’s impossible standards would cost billions, destroy our quality of life & devastate Arizona’s economy. Many of the recommendations have been imported from California and include:

• Banning gas-powered vehicles by 2035
• Phasing out residential & commercial gas appliances
• Limiting the use of gas-powered lawn equipment
• Prohibiting the use of recreational vehicles (boats, quads, etc) on high ozone days

What can be done?

Pass HCM2008, Urges the Biden Administration and the U.S. Congress to stop the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from imposing coercive and likely unconstitutional penalties on Arizona to comply with an ozone standard that is impossible to attain through any of the control measures being considered. 

Also, SB1313, will not solve all this recklessness, but it will make cities have to account for these changes by prohibiting a city from adopting a general plan that reduces the system capacity of their arterials for motor vehicles.

Click here for links to networks pushing the elimination of gas-powered vehicles and working to implement the removal of cars entirely.

If you have questions, please call or email me.

Cathy Messinger

480-370-9897

Cathym1950@gmail.com

Claims Clinic for the Pact Act 

The PACT Act Claims Clinic in March was a huge success! Over 250 Veterans participated with 98 Veterans getting the toxic exposure screening. If you have questions about the PACT Act Click here. This act is for service members and their survivors who had environmental exposures during their military service. This coverage is extended to veterans of the Viet Nam, Gulf War, and Post 9/11 eras. The burden of proof is no longer on the veteran; there are presumptive conditions. If you’re not enrolled, please do so even if just for this coverage:  Apply for VA Health Care Benefits or call 877-222-8387, M-F, 8:00 am to 8:00 p.m. ET.

The media has a profound effect on our culture. Whatever made Bud Light think it was a good idea to put Dylan Mulvaney on a Bud Light can of beer, we’ll never know. It seems they wanted to get ahead of the curve on what is going on currently in American culture. Instead, that ad campaign simply backfired, knowing that that is not what Americans identify with culturally. Maybe subcultural, but certainly not the values most Americans profess.

And then the unthinkable happened. This week, Fox News released a beloved and iconic journalist, Tucker Carlson, from his position as the one journalist who carries the most clout there. He is trusted and watched by many; a sort of 21st-century Walter Cronkite. If Fox News is trying to reflect the times, they have clearly missed the bullseye – unless they are trying to affect our culture by removing someone with Tucker’s point of view from the

mainstream press. Then we are in deep trouble with our First Amendment.

Advertising, across all media, will try to dictate to us that company’s view of our world. Or they will die trying.

Sponsor Business Card Ads are $100 for 12 months of inclusion in the monthly newsletters. Your ad will also be highlighted on RWOP website. If you are interested in highlighting your business, please contact Joan Lesko rwopweb@gmail.com

SELECT BUSINESS CARD BELOW TO GO DIRECTLY TO THEIR BUSINESS WEBSITE OR FACEBOOK PAGE

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