Considering that October 26th, 2025 was an overcast rainy day here, we had a very nice turnout for our October membership meeting. Our guest speaker was the always informative Darrel Dexter, local historian and teacher. Dexter’s program was “General Grant in Egypt” and recounted how Grant began his early Civil War experience as an officer serving at a training camp just north of Jonesboro, Illinois and was later transferred to command at Cairo, Illinois where the town was transformed into a military encampment and he became a general. Dexter recounted how the city of Cairo changed through the Civil War period.
President, Sam Lattuca, informed the membership as to the current state of the museum and showed pictures of the many recently accessioned photos and artifacts that had been donated to the museum since the last quarterly meeting as well as current work that has been performed on the building.
The membership voted on the upcoming 2026 Officers and Directors. Those elected to serve in 2026 are:
Sam Lattuca, President; Andrew McRoy, 1st Vice President; Gloria Spinks, 2nd Vice President; Michael Spinks, Treasurer: Candy Calcaterra, Secretary. One new Director was elected to the board, Leann Johnson, whose term will serve from 2026 until 2028. Other Directors that serve on the board are Charla Murphy until 2026 and Helen Lind who serves until 2027.