The L.I.N.D.A. 35th Anniversary Convention was held at the Hilton Garden Inn Riverwalk Hotel in Sioux City, Iowa on July 15-17, 2022 and there were 54 Lindas in attendance. Registration started at 1 pm and at 5:30 we made Jade bracelets to go along with the color theme of the convention. At 6 pm we played Linda bingo and all enjoyed a little Linda Bingo spelling out our name. Friday afternoon and right into Saturday evening we all enjoyed looking at the raffle and silent auction items, 93 in all. We raised funds for two (2) charities this year; Trinity Heights and Her Health Center for Woman. A special thank you to Linda Kellogg for the $800 she enlisted for donations to our raffle and silent auction. A great job well done by all.
Early Saturday morning we had our annual membership meeting where we discussed our board members positions. President Stricklin was out with a bad back and Vice President Smith called the meeting to order and presided over the meeting. We explained procedures for applying for the vacant seventh position on the board according to our by-laws and took a list of names to mail applications. We also got an update on the 2023 Niagara Falls Convention from Norris stating that New York State, because of the pandemic, will not make any decisions until after October. We decided to have a back up plan and agreed that, if needed, the 2023 Convention will be held in Frankenmuth, Michigan. So, now we are set for 2023 and 2024 conventions if everything goes well!
Our Saturday event was at Trinity Heights. We wore our T-Shirts and had the group photo taken there. Trinity Heights is a very peaceful, beautiful and inspirational place. Somewhere you can reflect, feel calm and at peace. It has beautiful art work, sculptures, statues and quiet gardens. After our sack lunch we gathered together for a prayer led by Padgurskis to honor our deceased Lindas. We blew bubbles donated by the Buss family, in honor of Linda Buss, to memorialize all the Lindas that have passed on. The bubble bottles read ‘Angel & Dove’… “I’ll blow kisses to heaven from my heart to yours”. This was a very nice memorial. The rest of the afternoon was free time back at the hotel to spend as you pleased.

The Saturday banquet was great fun, as usual, getting together with the Lindas and enjoying each other’s company. The cheerleaders for “Cheers to Lindas for 35 Years” had an excellent cheer!

Sunday morning send off was especially busy with the two hotels and everyone trying to check out and be on time. Due to unfortunate circumstances this convention had Lindas in two different hotels, owned and operated by Hilton. On Sunday send off, the Lindas received information on both of the charities from their perspective representative. Trinity Heights received a check in the amount of $1,000 and the Her Health Women’s Center, a small local charity that helps women in the community with a number of different issues, received a check for $1,440. The Lindas raised a grand total of $2440, a job marvelously done!