Cool, Calm and Collected in Kansas:
Front: Eli
Whitney, Harvey Kistler, John Cole, Shannon Rittberger & Dick Mareska
Rear: Darlene Piekkola, Patty
Caster, Joyce Dragseth, Mary Worlie, Karen Spencer, Karla Harkness, Karen
Spencer, Bruce Woodzell (IAAO President), Rownea Gerbracht & Deb Grote
NCRAAO - 2011. It was all President Della Rowley said
it would be. Calm, Cool and Collected. Well, hardly cool.
It was nice and warm in Kansas this June compared to our wet and rainy
spring here in South Dakota. Conference started out a little early for
those who had to travel and get there on Sunday. There was golfing (of
course), and the local recreational center was rented out. We were
allowed to use the go-carts, miniature golf and bowling as much as we wanted
for the evening. They also fed us a barbequed hamburger dinner.
Starting bright and early Monday morning was all of the KCAA and NCRAAO
Directors meetings, followed by the opening reception and silent auction and
a tour of the Kansas state capital building. The capital building tour
was supposed to be by flashlight only. But, they are under renovation
at the moment and they could not do that for us.
The days in Topeka were filled with education, exhibitors and
networking with fellow assessors across our region. There were many
sessions starting with The 3 R's of Basic Legal
Description (Reading, Writing & Arithmetic) with Randy
Kobiella, CMS. You think, "yeah right, if we don't know how to do that
by now we are in trouble". But, Marion Johnson won my heart by
starting out talking about "the 3 surveyors and another guy". Mount
Rushmore. There were also sessions on the
Development
of a
Capitalization
Rate Study
with tim Kelly, MAI & Scott Walter, the
Valuation of
Fast
Foods with Marion Johnson, CAE,
Valuation
of Hotel/Motels
with Antonia Viens, MAI, SRA, Calibrating
Depreciation
Schedules with Scott Johnson, RES, and
Dealing with
the
Media with Gwyn Mellinger. As if
the sessions weren't good enough, the conference days ended with a session
on IAAO Mass Appraisal Standards with George Donatells, CMS, Foreclosure
Sales & the Mass Appraisal Process with Scott Winter, RES and a half-day
All-State General Topic Round Table with representation from each state:
Scott VanMeter - MO, Kevin Ternes - ND, Steve Miner - WI, Jean Keller - IA,
Joyce Dragseth - SD and Greg McHenry - KS.
There was some excellent
discussion between the presenters and the group on what is currently
happening in each of our states, and what could potentially effect us in the
future.
Congratulations!
The team to win First Place of the Golf Tournament were Dana Pulfrey, Paul
Fracassi, Brad Miller & Darlene Piekkola.
