A series of short tidbits about distinctive activities and public comments observed or heard around the convention center in New Orleans during the final day of the 2017 AASA national conference.

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A Symmetric Start and Finish
Gail Pletnick, incoming president of AASA, apologized for her strained voice at the beginning of her remarks at the 3rd General Session on Saturday morning. It probably sounded déjà vu to those who were attending the 2017 AASA conference.

“We started this conference with our president (Alton Frailey, at 1st General Session) apologizing for his voice,” she said from the stage podium. “We’re going to end it with a president-elect apologizing.”
Going It Alone
When Dan Domenech, AASA’s director, announced the winner of a drawing to participate in the next Lifetouch Memory Mission, he had a joke ready when he announced David Cox as the lucky recipient.

Cox, a superintendent in western Maryland, conducts the AASA Singing Superintendents.

Quipped Domenech: “Back stage, he said, ‘Dan, I want you singing with the group — solo – so no one ever hears you.’”
A Potpourri of Lost Stuff
Tammy Barbara, who managed the information kiosk at AASA’s national conference in New Orleans, became the collection person for various found items discovered by conference participants.

When the event concluded at midday Saturday, the items in hand included a silver bracelet, an entire outfit including shoes, a pair of sunglasses, a women's a bag full of power cords and charging devices and a small makeup kit.

Everything was turned over to the convention center’s public safety office (504-582-3040).
(Compiled by Jay P. Goldman, editor of Conference Daily Online.)