Ron Kwiecien

Presidents Message for June 2023

On Thursday, June 22, 2023, we lost one of our members, Ron Kwiecien, a dear friend. Ron had been a member of the Crankin A’s for many years. He was always at the Hangar on Tinker Tuesday, with his camera in hand. Apparently he had several different cameras because occasionally he would show it off to me as if he had just purchased it and explain all the wonderful things it could do. I assumed it was new to him, but each time it looked like the last one he showed off to me! And sometimes he would bring in his laptop to share past club event photos or his latest YouTube video. He certainly enjoyed keeping those club memories alive for us. And he was really good at it.

He was also proud of his work with our club website crankinas.comIt was a real work or art. He would always keep us informed of club events, birthdays, and anniversaries with his creative calendar. And over the years he won several awards from MARC, the Model A Restorers Club, for his website design. It was nice for them to acknowledge his efforts.

And he loved and was proud of his Model A! I remember one outing we were all going to lunch. He was driving with Connie at his side. The Model A was overheating. I asked him what he was going to do. He said, “just fill it with water, drive slowly and pull over if I must - to let it cool down”. And that was the answer. I was impressed with his calmness about the situation. Ron was always in good humor and a friend to everyone. We will miss seeing Ron’s smiling face when we get together. We know that although he is gone from our sight, he will never be gone from our hearts.

As club president one of our tasks is to write a president’s message after each monthly meeting. A day or two after the meeting, having NOT yet sent my message, I would get a text asking for the message. By then I knew I would be hearing from Ron, “don’t forget about your message”! At first, I thought he needed it by the end of the month. That should be ok, right? I soon found out he wanted it soon after the meeting, like the next day. Well, I am happy to say that this month’s president’s message is being dedicated from Kim to Ron – I finally got it in on time!