Dear Members,

We had a great turnout for our February chapter meeting. I appreciate all of you who could make time during this busy season to come hear and support TSCPA Chair David Curbo. 

The March meeting will be our last chapter meeting of this fiscal year. I am truly honored to have served as president of the Appalachian Chapter. I would like to thank the other officers, Andy Hatfield, Deanna Griffith and Sharon Bryant, our Young CPA committee chair Matt Loizeaux and our council members and board members for all their hard work in attending state-wide meetings and in planning our meetings, recruiting speakers and otherwise making this a successful year for our chapter. I would also like to thank our faithful members who make it to nearly all the chapter meetings every month. Our chapter is small, but thanks to the continued participation of our members, our chapter remains very involved at the state level, with many of our members serving on state committees and having served as current and former state officers. Our own Appalachian Chapter member, Andy Bonner, will be the upcoming chair for the state society for the 2010-2011 fiscal year.

We will be having our strategic planning session in April to plan events for the upcoming year. Please let one of the officers or a board member knows of any suggestions you may have for the upcoming year.

Sincerely,

Donna W. Jones

With the help of members donations, past recipients of TSCPA scholarships have moved on to new journeys. In this newsletter and upcoming issues we will profile local scholarship recipients - some recent and some not-so-recent. Find out what they've been up to and how TSCPA's scholarship program has made a difference for them.

A.J. Babel received a TSCPA scholarship in 2009. A.J. is currently a senior at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City and will graduate in May.

“I was really excited to be chosen to receive the scholarship,” says A.J. “I felt honored to be selected, and it was nice to have some extra money to help out, too.”

In addition to being a scholarship recipient, A.J. also participated in TSCPA’s Accounting Academy program in 2005.

“I participated in the Accounting Academy the summer before my senior year of high school and really had a great time,” says A.J. “It helped me get a more practical and realistic view of different careers for accountants. It was also quite an experience to tour the Titans facility and Cracker Barrel’s headquarters.”  A.J. is also a student member of TSCPA and has attended some of the Appalachian Chapter’s monthly meetings.

In addition to his final semester of classes at ETSU, A.J. currently has an internship in the internal audit department of Eastman Chemical Company in Kingsport.