Up Dates

Based on our District Meeting on June 7, 2025, there are several updates and information from that meeting. 
It is with great pleasure for us to congratulate Gretchen House who won the District 17 Oratorical contest, then won Zone, then won Department and won the regional context at national and then finished 2^nd place in the semi-finals to the eventual National Oratorical contest winner.  She was able to be at the meeting and did her 10-minute prepared speech that she did at the National contest.  She was greeting after the oration with a “Standing Ovation” from the entire members that were in attendance. 

Remember that the CPR & Post Officers Report must be sent to the department now.  If you are running late, you should call the Department and make arrangement now.  If you plan to attend the annual conference, please look up all the information at:   https://www.missourilegion.org/conv-and-conference-info/.     

A lot of posts have had “scammers” trying to get them to buy gift cards and send it to them in the name of district or department.  DO NOT DO IT!!!!!  We have also had a number of people wanting donations for some cause like rent or car payments, saying they are veterans, but with no documents.  Tell them we have a program for that and go to Missourilegion.org and look up “Financial Assistance Application” and then print it (4 pages of information) when it completed send it in to department for them to approve the amount. 

Election of Officers effective July 13, 2025:

District Office	Officer	Post Location
Commander	Barb Riggle	Post 434, Nixa
Senior Vice Commander	Charles Holt	Post 38, Fair Grove
Vice Cmdr. at Large	Heather Lawson	Post 637, Kimberling City
Vice Cmdr. North	Jeff Griffith	Post 138, Bolivar
Vice Cmdr. South	Heather Lawson	Post 637, Kimberling City
Vice Cmdr. East	Nicholas Gerdes	Post 434, Nixa
Vice Cmdr. West	Bill Roark	Post 125, Springfield
Adjutant/Finance	Mark Reed	Post 138, Bolivar
Chaplain	Jack Rennaker	Post 306, Seymour
Service Officer	Bob Frank	Post 125, Springfield
Judge Advocate	Joe Younger	Post 434, Nixa
Historian	Bill Roark	Post 125, Springfield
Sgt-at-Arms	Wade Harris	Post 276, Humansville

American Legion District 17 had their Fall Meeting on Sunday September 8, 2024. The meeting was held at Post 637 in Kimberling City that provided us with an outstanding lunch. The new commander at the post is Heather Lawson and she was a very nice host. If you’ve not been to the post it is on highway 13 about 1 mile before the bridge at Table Rock Lake. They have a nice bar and grill and are open 7 days per week 1100 to 2100.
There are some updates to the list of officers for District 17, as follows:
New Vice Commander at Large is Charles Holt who was Sgt-at-Arms before, that position is now Wade M. Harris. We have added 2 Vice Commanders, South will be Heather Lawson, East will be Nicholas Gerdes. We welcome them on board. For a full list of our officers look at the officers tab in this website.
If you are a member of district 17 please check out the website and especially the links to your post. If you see any errors or would like to have something included send me an email at billroark45@gmail.com or call me at 417-207-0038.
We also gave an update of The Department Convention in St Louis in July 2024.
Our next meeting will be held Sunday, December 8, 2024 at Nixa Post 434. Lunch will be at 1:00 pm and the meeting will start at 2:00 pm. It was pointed out that their is a local parade during that time, but it should be finished by the time we end our meeting.

District 17 will have a post revitalization on Sunday, April 7, 2024 at 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm. It will be in the Veteran Event Center – 3335 West Sunshine Street – Suite 5, Springfield, Missouri. We will have tables and chairs set up for everyone to use their cell phones to make calls to American Legion members that now belong to MO-1000 and offer a transfer to a local post. We have available a Wi-Fi network for all to use during the calls.
The Department Senior Vice Commander will be sending us the list for us to call. This will help your district to have a better record for membership getting closer to 100% of our goal for 2024 even if your post is at or near 100%. I’ll see you then.
Bill Roark

Officers of District 17 will be posting information and updates at this location. It may be in reference to an event or monthly meetings, etc. We will also post updates for our District VSO to include information that might be of use from the VA.