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Greetings from your Oklahoma Marine Corps Coordinating Council! As we move through the summer into the fall, we look forward to cooler weather and our annual Marine Corp Birthday Luncheon. Although the annual Birthday luncheon is the highpoint of our year; the Coordinating Council has been active on many fronts this year supporting our local Marine activities.
This last year we have continued to support our three Marine Corps High School JROTC programs (Bixby, Grant and Sapulpa High Schools) through sponsorship of transportation to drill and marksmanship team events, unit t-shirts and sponsored seats at the annual luncheon. We have sponsored the annual Community Service awards for both the Anti-Tank Training Unit in Broken Arrow and BTRY F, 2/14 in Oklahoma City. We have helped sponsor the Fort Sill’s Marine Detachment’s Devil Dog run which is their largest community outreach event each year. We have supported the Oklahoma Recruiting Station through various recruiter incentive and recognition awards and Marine Corps ball sponsorship. We are continuing our sponsorship of the Marine Corps League’s “Marine of the Year” award and sponsor the Marine static displays at the Medal of Honor Day Ceremony held in Tulsa during April each year. Additionally we have continued our very popular sponsorship of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball tickets as incentive and superior performance awards for Marines from the Recruiting Station, Anti-Tank Training Company, Fox Battery 2/14, the Fort Sill Marine Detachment, and OU’s NROTC in recognition of their outstanding Marines.
We were honored at our annual meeting this year to have Major General James Livingston in attendance. General Livingston received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic actions in Vietnam and was attending the Medal of Honor Day Ceremony in Tulsa and took time out of his schedule to attend our annual meeting and share a few thoughts.
At the annual meeting the officers also introduced our new Council Donor/Sponsorship Program. Over the years we have been very fortunate to have some very generous and faithful sponsors who have made many of our efforts possible and we would like to honor BancFirst as our Founding Sponsor and Mr. Harold Copeland as our Founding Donor. We also owe Tinker Federal Credit Union recognition as our Annual Meeting Sponsor and appreciate their full support. Without these very generous financial supporters we would not have been able to expand our support efforts to the Oklahoma Marine community.
We have also been very fortunate to have many of our Council members provide their financial support over the years. We have now come to the point where the Council leadership believes that we should establish a more formal donor / sponsor program that will allow Council recognition to members and sponsors who provide financial support that will ensure our ability to continue support to the Marine community into the future.
Enclosed is an outline of our Council Donor/Sponsorship Program. The terms Sponsor and Donor generally refer to corporate or individual contributors. For federal tax purposes corporate organizations are referred to as “Sponsors” and private individuals are referred to as “Donors”. Our program has five levels recognizing annual sponsorship beginning with “Jarhead” and progresses to “Leatherneck”, “Devil Dog”, “First to Fight” and “Semper Fi Circle”. Our “Legacy” level recognizes the accumulation of total sponsorship over multiple years and honors individuals and organizations that have partnered with us to ensure that the council continues to support our Marine community well into the future. We appreciate all of our supporters and will recognize participants at our annual meeting and birthday luncheon.
We are very excited about this year’s luncheon! Our goal is to bring in the very best speakers and leaders of our Armed Forces, and this year will be no exception. Our Guest of Honor will be Rear Admiral Greg Slavonic, who was recently appointed as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Manpower and Reserve Affairs). For our Traditions and Lore, we will be commemorating the 100th Anniversary of the Battle for Belleau Wood which will be presented by our own History Professor Emeritus, Mr. Lloyd Hardin Jr. (Executive Vice-President of the Council). Lloyd will recount the exploits of the Marine Brigade serving in France and the significance that this battle would have on the making of the modern Marine Corps. And as usual, we will have a very special and unique coin to commemorate this event (Thanks again to our coin sponsors who make this possible).
This year’s luncheon will be held on Friday, the 9nd of November 2018, at the Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club located at 7000 NW Grand Blvd. Nichols Hills. Note this is a different location than previous years. We have been able to hold the cost of the luncheon steady for many years unfortunately in spite of our best effort we need to increase the cost of the luncheon to $35.00 for this year’s event and to $40.00 next year to get closer to the actual cost. More details will follow as we get closer to the luncheon, but I can assure you that we will do our best to honor our Marine Corps and Marines during this the event.
Semper Fidelis,
Anthony J. (AJ) JohnsonColonel USMC (Ret)President, US Marine Corps Coordinating Council of Oklahoma, Inc.
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