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Allen Murfin"Tony"
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Following graduation I joined the Army Reserves and spent six months on active duty at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., and Fort Bliss, TX. After completing my six months active duty I returned to Liberty, and was employed at Davis Paint Company, in North Kansas City, until January 1958. At that time I enlisted in the Marine Corps and went to San Diego, Ca. for boot camp and then to Camp Pendleton, Ca. for advanced infantry training and then back to San Diego, for radio school. After graduating from radio school I was stationed at the Marine Base at Twenty Nine Palms, Ca. and then was sent to Okinawa for two years. |
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I received an honorable discharge from the Marines, January 1962 and returned to Liberty, and went to work for Massey Ferguson Inc. in Fairfax, Ks. Soon there after I met Evelyn Rottinghaus on a blind date. She was in nursing school at Providence Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas. We were married May 25th, 1963 and purchased a home in Gladstone, Mo.
We have three daughters all born while we lived in Gladstone, Christina Wehmeyer, age 41, JoAnn Stodden, age 40 and Marcie Scott, age 34. Christina is a teacher in the Columbia, Mo. Public School District, JoAnn and her family live in Davis, Ca. where she is a stay at home mom, and Marcie and her family live in Watauga, TX., where she too is a stay at home mom.
We have eight grand children, Justin and Zachery are Christina’s two boys, Elizabeth and Patrick are Jo Ann’s two and David, Kimberlee, Mathew and Jacob are Marcie’s four children. We also have two step grand children, Ashley and Dustin, that are Marcie’s husband’s two children from a previous marriage.
While in Gladstone, I served on the city Planning and Zoning Commission for three years and was President of the Gladstone Jaycees after serving in several leadership positions. I also served as President of the Missouri Jaycees in 1970-71 and as a U S Jaycee National Vice President in 1971-72. Following my term in office as U S Jaycee Vice President I was employed by the U S Jaycees as the Northeast Regional Field Representative and we moved from Gladstone, to Northborough, MA., where we lived for two years before accepting the Training Officer position at the U S Jaycee Headquarters in Tulsa, Ok. I held various staff positions at the Jaycee Headquarters before resigning my position as the Executive Director of Services in December 1975 to accept the Executive Vice President’s position with the Columbia, Mo. Chamber of Commerce.
I resigned that position in January 1980 to become Vice President of the National Food and Energy Council also headquartered in Columbia, a position I held until October 1982. I left the National Food and Energy Council to accept the position as President/CEO of the Southwest Hardware & Implement Association whose headquarters were in Fort Worth, TX. That organization was a regional trade association covering the states of Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas.
In 1984 I received the Certified Association Executive designation, (CAE) from the American Society of Association Executives, (ASAE), and achieved life time status for the CAE designation after re-qualifying for it every three years until my 62nd birthday.
I retired from the Southwest Association March 1st, 2004 and we moved to Holly Lake Ranch, Texas where we have owned a home for several years.
Evelyn is a Registered Nurse and is currently employed at Trinity Mother Francis Hospital in Tyler, TX in the pre-op department. She plans to work another two years before retiring.
I have also served as President of the Dallas-Fort Worth Association Executives, The Texas Society of Association Executives, and the National American Executives Association.
Currently I am a Life Member of the Northland Elks, a member of the Holly Lake Ranch Kiwanis Club, the Holly Lake Ranch Volunteer Fire Department and serve as Treasurer of the Greater Hawkins Area Veterans Memorial Association.
I have been honored by my professional organization’s by being selected to receive the Distinguished Executive of The Year Award , the Distinguished Life Member Award and the Terry Townsend Award from the Texas Society of Association Executives. I also received the Clint Dunigan Award as one of the ten outstanding U S Jaycee National Directors., at the U S Jaycee National Convention Held in St. Louis, Mo.
A couple of years ago we purchased a home on Table Rock lake in Branson West, Mo. And we plan to spend the summer months there and return to Texas for the winter months after Evelyn retires.
We have been fortunate to have held positions of employment over the years that allowed us to travel to all 51 states in the U S and all of the Provinces of Canada. I have also made trips to Ireland, Japan and Mexico to attend various meetings. We were able to take our children with us on many of these trips.
Life has been good since graduating from LHS in 1956, and much of the success I have enjoyed in my life is directly related to my parents and the teachers I had in high school. I am most grateful to them for the preparation they provided for the future.