2012 Convention Report

by Bill Gowen, PF-706

(Click here to download this article as a PDF file.)

(Originally published in the May-June 2012 issue of Newsboy)

The third time was indeed a real charm for “Dash to DeKalb III,” the Horatio Alger Society’s third visit to the quiet Illinois city of DeKalb, home of Northern Illinois University, on May 3-6, 2012.

This was the Horatio Alger Society’s 48th convention, the annual event dating back to 1965 when H.A.S. co-founder Kenneth Butler was our host in Mendota, Illinois. “Dash to DeKalb III” was the Society’s sixth convention in Illinois, with the first two “Dash to DeKalb” events in 1999 and 2004; Gilbert K Westgard II hosting “Rosemont 12th time” in Suburban Chicago in 1976 and Jack Bales hosting “The Jacksonville Jamboree” in 1978.

Northern Illinois University became a “colleague” of the Horatio Alger Society in 1994 when its University Libraries were chosen to become the official repository of an official Horatio Alger collection, a complement to the library’s existing American Popular Literature and Albert Johannsen dime novel collections. Since the creation of its Horatio Alger collection, the NIU Libraries have added several other related collections, including the Edward LeBlanc dime novel collection and the Arthur Sherman Edward Stratemeyer collection.

Currently, NIU’s Horatio Alger collection is the largest held by any library, comprising more than 4,000 volumes, including a near-complete first edition collection, reprint editions by numerous publishers, along with serials, manuscripts, letters and original illustrations. Many of these items have been digitized and are available to researchers through the library’s website.

Enough for history. As part of its mission to preserve, expand and “spread the word” about the Horatio Alger Society repository collection, NIU has invited the Society to periodically hold its annual convention in DeKalb. This year was the latest such event.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Registration for the convention began at 1 p.m. in the official H.A.S. hospitality room in Rare Books and Special Collections, Suite 402 in NIU’s Founders Memorial Library. Lynne M. Thomas, curator of Rare Books and Special Collections, served as our host for the weekend, and she and her staff had our registration materials and refreshments all set for us upon arrival. Our official souvenir was an NIU-inscribed USB flash drive containing a selection of digitized Alger materials held at the library.

Many Partic’lar Friends and their spouses arriving earlier in the day had lunch on their own at restaurants located on or off the NIU campus. Hotel check-in was very convenient, just a short walk from the library at the Holmes Student Center Hotel.

The Rare Books and Special Collections department proved to be a well-chosen venue for our hospitality suite, with plenty of comfortable chairs and tables around which to gather and reminisce with fellow Partic’lar Friends, many of whom we had not seen in a year or more. We also had access to the H.A.S. repository collections, located in an adjacent climate-controlled room.

The weekend’s major convention activities were scheduled for the staff lounge in the lower level of Founders Memorial Library, after it was decided that the Diversions Lounge in Holmes Student Center was too large for our group. The staff lounge included a kitchenette where coffee, soft drinks and snacks could be served, and the room was equipped with comfortable chairs, tables and a pair of wall-mounted large-screen television monitors for use with our presentations on Friday.

Thursday’s first event was the annual Board of Directors meeting, which was held in the library’s fourth-floor conference room. Chaired by H.A.S President Bob Sipes, the meeting was called to order at 4:28 PM. Items on the agenda included presentation of the treasurer’s financial report, the Executive Director’s report covering membership trends, including the increase of sustaining members over the past year from one to eight.

The Newsboy report was presented by Editor Bill Gowen, whose handout showed that costs of producing the newsletter declined slightly over the previous year, due mainly to a decreased press run of 160 copies per issue. The tradition of at least one full-cover issue per year will continue, and additional savings will be made by purchasing mailing envelopes in bulk starting with the July-August 2012 issue.

Other agenda items in the meeting included future convention sites, with the tentative dates for 2013 set for May 2-5; a report on the Strive and Succeed Award fund and a vote by the board to award $1,000 to the recipient selected by the convention host.

The directors also heard a report by the nominating committee, presenting a slate of three directors – David Yarington, Ken Broadie and Richard Hoffman ‒ to serve three-year terms; and the nomination of Barry Schoenborn as President and Jeff Looney as Vice President. All of the nominees were to be voted on by the membership at Friday’s business meeting.

Lynne Thomas gave a report on the current state of the H.A.S. Endowment, and director Brad Chase gave an update on the structure of the Society’s annual awards, noting that the awards will remain status quo, because to make changes would require a change in the H.A.S. constitution and by-laws.

Other agenda items included Barry Schoenborn’s update on the progress on the new official website and the costs incurred therein over the past year.

Thursday’s dinner was on our own at nearby area restaurants, a list having been provided in our convention registration materials.

Another traditional event on Thursday night was getting the following day’s auction materials organized and catalogued on the auction spreadsheet. Minus the books he had previous sold on the Internet (with a commission going to the Horatio Alger Society), Ed Mattson brought the large Robert Williman estate Alger collection from Maryland and already had the books arranged in lots in the staff lounge, which made entering the collection by President Bob Sipes on his computer a much easier task.

In addition to the Williman books, there were a couple dozen more auction items brought to DeKalb, which also had to be logged into the computer. A grand total of 170 lots were scheduled for Friday’s auction.

Friday May 4, 2012

The Board of Directors gathered for breakfast shortly after 7:30 a.m. in the Holmes Student Center cafeteria, and several other Partic’lar Friends also took advantage of the wide selection of hot and cold breakfast foods available, before heading to the staff lounge at the library for the day’s official activities.

At shortly before 9 a.m., President Bob Sipes and convention host Lynne Thomas gave an overview of the day’s upcoming activities, which after the morning presentations included the annual business meeting and box lunch (catered by Panera Bread) in the Rare Books hospitality suite on the fourth floor. The auction was set for 1 p.m., back in the staff lounge.

The three presentations began shortly after 9 a.m., all three speakers using PowerPoint slides to illustrate their talks.

The first talk was by Nathaniel Williams, Ph.D., a postdoctoral English teaching fellow in the University of Kansas’ College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Lawrence. His presentation was titled “U.S. Expansionism and the Editorship of Luis Senarens.”

Of Cuban-American ancestry and often called “the American Jules Verne,” Senarens (1863-1939) wrote science fiction stories for dime novels. Notably, in the early 1880s he introduced the character of Frank Reade, Jr., as a continuation of the Frank Reade stories begun by Harry Enton in 1868; and in the late 1890s he wrote stories for Frank Tousey’s publications.

The second presentation was by Newsboy editor Bill Gowen, titled “The Boys’ Books of A. Hyatt Verrill.” A prolific author in addition to being a naturalist, explorer and inventor, Alpheus Hyatt Verrill (1871-1954) traveled extensively in Central and South America, and wrote some 106 books, most of them nonfiction.

Verrill’s 11 series books for boys are highly collectible, and they were discussed in detail during the talk. These series are The Radio Detectives (four volumes), the Deep Sea Hunters (three volumes), both for D. Appleton & Co; and the Boy Adventurers (four volumes) for G.P. Putnam’s Sons. The covers of all 11 of these books were illustrated by slides, as were the covers of several other significant Verrill books.

The final presentation of the morning was Brad Chase’s highly anticipated unveiling of his latest book about Alger publishers, Thomas D. Hurst and his Publication of Horatio Alger Books.

Capping several years of research, writing and editing, Chase used slides to illustrate how the project came about, how he received immeasurable help from Thomas Hurst’s descendants (until now, little was known about this New York publisher), and how the book was researched and produced.

Chase had copies of the book (reviewed in the March-April issue of Newsboy) on hand, and he inscribed them throughout the weekend for those Partic’lar Friends adding it to their Alger reference collections.

During the above-mentioned box lunch in the hospitality suite, the annual business meeting was held. Following the treasurer’s report, Newsboy report and Executive Director’s report was the election of officers. The slate of Barry Schoenborn for President and Jeff Looney for Vice President was nominated for two-year terms, followed by new directors Dave Yarington, Ken Broadie and Dick Hoffman, for three-year terms ending in 2015. Outgoing directors Art Young, Brad Chase and Bob Huber were thanked and applauded by the membership for their three years’ service to the Society. All the nominees were elected by an enthusiastic voice vote.

A major agenda item at any convention is the selection of a site for the following year’s convention. This was no different, as Bob and Wendy Sipes offered to host the 2013 convention in the Indianapolis area. Since they were the hosts as recently as 2007, the Sipes said they would pick a location nearer to Indianapolis than their hometown of Shelbyville (the 2007 location), so as to give attendees a new experience this time. A voice vote approved Indianapolis for the 2013 convention, with the preferred dates of May 2-5, 2013. Bob promised to have more details available as to location and hotel before the end of this year.

Following lunch and the business meeting, the annual auction took place in the staff lounge, lasting slightly more than three hours. The majority of the books were from the Alger estate collection of the late Bob Williman of Bowie, Maryland, host of the 17th convention, “The Capitol Caucus”, in 1981. Most of the Williman first editions were sold over the Internet by Ed Mattson, with the consignment percentage going to the Horatio Alger Society. As of the weekend of the convention, the H.A.S. had received a commission of $749 from the Internet portion of the sale, while those Williman books sold at DeKalb (118 lots comprising mostly reprint editions) brought in an additional $294 in commission.

Mattson and fellow auctioneer Bob Huber moved the day’s 170 lots swiftly, with total bids reaching $2,150, the Williman estate books plus books consigned or donated by other members. Including the Internet sales, the H.A.S. received $1,430.60 in consignment commissions, with the donated books earning an additional $212 for the Society.

At around 5:30 p.m., we gathered at the library to organize into carpools for the ride to the “Dutch treat” Friday dinner at the Hillside Restaurant, a short drive away in downtown DeKalb. This was a switch from the originally planned Nats on Maple in the town of Sycamore, due to that restaurant’s scheduling snafu. However, the Hillside proved to be a nice choice, with a reasonably priced menu offering a wide range of entrée and dessert choices. The Hillside is located next door to DeKalb’s historic Egyptian Theatre, a 1930s Art Deco movie palace, which on this particular night was presenting a live version of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”. Several outlandishly costumed cast members chatted with us on the sidewalk as we were leaving the restaurant.

Saturday May 5, 2012

Saturday morning’s traditional event is the annual H.A.S. book sale, which has grown smaller over the years as fewer books are brought to the convention. We were helped this time by Ed Mattson bringing a nice selection of dust-jacketed series books (Tom Swift, Don Sturdy, Lone Ranger, etc.), plus Alger first editions and other older books. The sale afforded Brad Chase the opportunity to set up a table to sell and inscribe his new book. This gathering, in the staff lounge, also gave us the opportunity to enjoy coffee or cold drinks and to socialize in an informal setting.

Our second box lunch of the weekend again took place in the hospitality suite in Rare Books and Special Collections on the fourth floor, the food again provided by Panera Bread. The annual Alger Quiz, a tradition popularized by the late Ralph Gardner many years ago, was switched to Saturday because it was impractical at the Friday night dinner due to the high ambient noise in the restaurant. Since reigning Alger expert Rob Kasper had written the quiz and was thus ineligible to compete, Bob Sipes took top honors.

Saturday afternoon was free time, so several of us traveled to area antique and book stores. Your editor followed Bob Huber, Carol Nackenoff and Nathaniel Williams in a two-car caravan to Rockford, where we visited Toad Hall Used Books and Records (reopened under new ownership) and the Bookstall of Rockford. The pickings were pretty slim, the case at most used-book stores these days.

Of course, the culminating event of any convention is the Saturday evening banquet. As has become traditional in our visit to DeKalb, this event was held in the Sky Room on the top level of the Holmes Student Center, the dinner served buffet-style with several entrée and dessert choices.

The major event at the banquet is the annual presentation of the Strive and Succeed Award to a deserving area high school student. This year’s recipient was Michael Lozano, a senior at DeKalb High School, a young man who has overcome difficult times in life, including the loss of his father at a very early age.

Presenting the award was convention host Lynne Thomas, with Michael receiving a certificate, a check for $1,000 and a copy of Alger’s Strive and Succeed. He plans to attend Northern Illinois University in the fall to study theater. He lives in the DeKalb suburb of Cortland with his grandmother’s family, many of whom attended the banquet. He also keeps in close touch with his father’s relatives in Chicago.

“Being a young adult, I must encounter obstacles first-hand, especially being a third-generation Hispanic,” Michael said. “I realize I have made mistakes, but that same realization allows me to learn from those mistakes and eliminate the issue of them ever happening again. This will allow me to be more aware of myself and my surroundings, to come up with a solution whenever needed.”

Michael, a typical teenager, played sports his first three years of high school, but as a senior he discovered a passion to be a performer. He auditioned–and won–the featured role of Bernardo in DeKalb High School’s theater department production of Leonard Bernstein’s classic American musical “West Side Story” which opened for six performances the week following the banquet.

The annual Horatio Alger Society awards are also a major highlight of the banquet and this year was no exception. The Carl Hartmann Luck and Pluck Award was

presented by outgoing President Bob Sipes to Bob Huber, who hosted the successful 2011 H.A.S. convention “Work and Win in Ohio” in Canton, Ohio.

The Richard Seddon Award, given annually to the Partic’lar Friend who personifies the personality and camaraderie of the late Dick Seddon, was presented by incoming president Barry Schoenborn to Lynda Straus (PF-1120).

The Newsboy Award was presented in absentia by Schoenborn to Frances Rodgers (PF-1119), who did major work in constructing the new H.A.S. website and is currently attending college in Oregon.

The President’s Award was presented by Sipes to Rob Kasper, for his nearly two decades of service as the Society’s Executive Director. Kasper has retired from that position, which has been taken over by Sipes.

Sipes also formalized the passing of the presidency to Schoenborn with a handshake (in place of the missing H.A.S. gavel), to the applause of the audience.

The banquet’s keynote speaker was Professor Daniel Shealy, Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, whose talk was titled “Such is Fame! Louisa May Alcott and the Real Little Women.” Shealy, whose academic area of interest is 19th Century American Literature, answered audience questions following his extremely interesting presentation.

Once the banquet was over, we all stuck around the Sky Room for a few minutes to say our goodbyes (many were leaving early Sunday morning), although several remained in town for a farewell breakfast at a nearby off-campus restaurant. And so, it was a hopeful expression of “See you next year in Indianapolis!”

Bill Gowen
Newsboy Editor
Horatio Alger Society