2009 Annual Meeting Set for Feb. 10

The 2009 Annual Meeting of the membership of Bald Knob Cross of Peace Foundation will take place the second Tuesday of February as required by the organization's bylaws.

The meeting will be open to the general public and start at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10, at the Welcome Center on top of Bald Knob.

It won't be a typical annual meeting though. As per the Settlement Agreement there will be no election of board members and officers, nor review of new membership applications that night. All that won't happen until the 2011 Annual Meeting when the new Transition Board's term ends.

Pending membership applications that have been turned into the organization over the last few years were turned over to the new Secretary last Friday. At some point I'll be contacting those people just to confirm to them that their applications are in hand. There were two different files containing applications given to me and in my initial review I noticed some duplications.

The whole issue of membership is something that the Transition Board will likely address and bring up in 2011, if not before. While I can't speak for each board member's intention, I believe we will definitely be looking at ways to expand the membership base.

We haven't set the agenda yet for the annual meeting, though when it is finalized it will be posted here at www.baldknobcross.com. However, based on action taken Friday, the following items are expected to be discussed:

• Minor Bylaws Revisions — The Organizational Structure and Bylaws Committee will be making recommendations for amending the bylaws to make them more workable. There are a number of minor areas that need to be adjusted for modern business practices. That committee will make its report prior to Jan. 27, in order for us to mail out notices to the existing membership two weeks in advance of the meeting as required by the bylaws. Again, that report will be posted here and details should be ready to be made available at the Friends of the Cross monthly meeting on the evening of Jan. 27. This is most likely the only action on which the membership will vote.
  
  
• Cross Structural Report — The new Cross and Grounds Committee has been tasked to bring in a structural engineer to look at the cross and report back some initial findings at the Feb. 10 meeting. I'm hoping that we will have enough information that night to to least choose which general option we'll go as we move toward restoration of the cross.
  
  
• Other Committee Reports — The Finance Committee should have bids to submit for an auditor and will likely have something on fund-raising options. The Events Committee may also have additional information or suggestions for a Prayer Event, Easter Sunrise Service and the Blessing of the Bikes.

Transition Board Elects Officers

At Friday afternoon's meeting the Transition Board of Directors met for the first time and elected officers which shall serve until the February 2011 Annual Meeting, as per the Settlement Agreement.

Steve McKeown of Herrin will serve as president with Ralph Brandon of Carterville, vice-president. Jon Musgrave of Marion will serve as the secretary and Bradley Rogers of Vergennes will be the treasurer.

I'll update more later on the other action taken.

Transition Board to Organize Friday

The seven members appointed in the settlement agreement to the Transition Board of the Bald Knob Cross of Peace Foundation will meet for the first time this Friday, Jan. 16, at 3:30 p.m. in the Welcome Center on top of Bald Knob Mountain at Alto Pass, Illinois.

There’s no official agenda, however I can give you the basic outline that’s expected for the short meeting.

• Elect officers and officially organize ourselves. (Until we do, we’re not the transition board.)
  
  
• Identify immediate needs and delegate members to investigate and report back at the next meeting.
  
  
• Outline and adopt some broad goals and general policies.
  
  
• Likely take steps to limit access to the grassy area below the cross due to the deteriorating condition of the structure.
  
  
• Any other issue that one of the seven board members may bring up.

Please keep in mind that the seven of us do not know each other and for the most part have never met. Our common denominator is that we’re brothers in Christ and have a desire to see the Cross forward. We just received copies of the bylaws last week and Friday will be the earliest we could all get together. We will not have a lot of answers at this meeting. Our goal is to just get the processes started.

Three of the new transition members did attend the board of directors meeting for the Friends of the Cross organization last week to introduce ourselves and learn about their organization.

Upcoming meetings will be the January 27 meeting of the Friends of the Cross organization in Alto Pass at the community center. Some of the new transition board members will likely be present and the Friends have invited a representative from the new board to make a presentation.

At Friday’s meeting the new president will also set the time and place for the foundation’s annual meeting which is set for the second Tuesday of February.

Under the settlement agreement the current 18-member board of directors agreed to resign and turn over all the corporate papers and items to the new seven-member transition board upon their organization. We expect some of the outgoing board or officers, and/or their attorneys to be present to assist us in the transition.

Further information as it becomes available will be posted at www.BaldKnobCross.com. Thank you for your support.

Transitional Update

Members of the new transitional board received copies of the Bald Knob Cross of Peace Foundation's bylaws earlier today.

I've been reading over my copy as well as the settlement agreement while I go over the notes and ideas that have been circulating among the new members and the attorneys involved in the settlement.

I'm hoping we'll be calling our first board meeting sometime the following week which will allow us to meet each other in person for the first time. The main focus of that meeting will be to elect officers which is the necessary first step before the corporate records, financial documents, etc., can be turned over to us.

Checking out the by-laws it looks like the annual meeting of the membership is set for the second Tuesday of February. The actual place and time is determined by the president, which we won't know until we elect one at the upcoming special board meeting. Still mark your calendars for Feb. 10, 2009.

Meanwhile I've been reading old newspaper articles found on Ancestry.com, mostly out of the Edwardsville Intelligencer that regularly ran UPI stories on the development of the cross and Easter services in the 1950s and 1960s.

What I didn't realize was the length of time between the initial groundbreaking and construction of the iron support structure of the cross and the covering of it with the panels that are currently coming off.

For most of the Kennedy Administration, the cross was uncovered.

Be patient as we organize ourselves, and please keep us in your prayers.

New Day Dawns for the Cross

An agreement filed in Union County Circuit Court on Christmas Eve has settled the long simmering legal dispute involving the Bald Knob Cross of Peace.

The agreement creates a new interim seven-member board of directors for the Bald Knob Cross of Peace Foundation to oversee the operations and restoration of the nearly half-century-old monument sitting atop Southern Illinois' second highest peak.

As part of the agreement, the old board of directors submitted their resignations and dropped all legal disputes. The new seven member board will consist of the following persons.

• Mark Roath, pastor of Anna Heights Baptist Church in Anna
  
• Ralph Brandon, senior pastor of Covenant Christian Fellowship in Carterville
  
• Gerald Wright, senior pastor of Spirit of Life Church in DuQuoin
  
• Steven McKeown, senior pastor at the Christian Life Center in Herrin
  
• Doug Cherry, senior pastor at Victory Christian Center of Southern Illinois in Carbondale
  
• Jon Musgrave, IllinoisHistory.com and a member of Second Baptist Church in Marion
  
• Bradley Rogers, president of Christian Motorcycle Association

The settlement proved to be a Christmas gift for the region. The Associated Press picked up local coverage of the settlement and the article ran throughout the state and in some neighboring states.

Here's a sampling of the stories:

• Southern Illinoisan - Bald Knob battle settled
  
• DuQuoin Evening Call - Feud Ends at Bald Knob Cross