Thelma Jenkins interview, October 15, 1985: transcript

UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins i An Interview with Thelma Jenkins An Oral History Conducted by Lynn Ballard Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas Special Collections and Archives Oral History Research Center University Libraries University of Nevada, Las Vegas UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins ii © Ralph Roske Oral History Project on Early Las Vegas University of Nevada, Las Vegas, 2019 UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins iii The Oral History Research Center (OHRC) was formally established by the Board of Regents of the University of Nevada System in September 2003 as an entity of the UNLV University Libraries’ Special Collections Division. The OHRC conducts oral interviews with individuals who are selected for their ability to provide first-hand observations on a variety of historical topics in Las Vegas and Southern Nevada. The OHRC is also home to legacy oral history interviews conducted prior to its establishment including many conducted by UNLV History Professor Ralph Roske and his students. This legacy interview transcript received minimal editing, such as the elimination of fragments, false starts, and repetitions in order to enhance the reader's understanding of the material. All measures have been taken to preserve the style and language of the narrator. The interviewee/narrator was not involved in the editing process. UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins iv Abstract On October 15, 1985, collector Lynn Ballard interviewed Thelma Jenkins (born June 10th, 1923 in Paragonah, Utah) at her home in Henderson, Nevada. In this interview, Thelma Jenkins discusses her career in nursing as well as the differences in the various positions she’s worked. She also talks about attending various conventions and her membership in the Nevada Nurses Association. UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 5 This is an interview with Thelma Lamoreaux Jenkins in her home at 11 Nevada Way, Henderson, Nevada, 89015, on October 15th, 1985, at 4 P.M. The interviewer, or collector’s name, is Lynn Ballard from 632 Avenue M, Boulder City, Nevada. And this interview is a project for a nursing class, Nursing 461, and it’s a biographical interview. Thelma, I appreciate you allowing me to interview you for this nursing class. And we should start with your full name and your present address. This is Thelma Jenkins and I live at 11 Nevada Way in Henderson, Nevada. Where were you born and when were you born? A long time ago. (Laughs) I was born in Southern Utah in a little town called Paragonah. Its spelled P-a-r-a-g-o-n-a-h. That’s an Indian name. Approximately 500 people lived there at that time. I was born on June the 10th in 1923. Okay. Were you—how many members were in your family? I had three brothers and four sisters. My older brother who I did not know was killed at age twelve, and then I had a sister four years younger than me that died right—shortly after birth. The rest of my family—my brothers and sisters, are living. My mother and father are both deceased. What were (unintelligible) the children (unintelligible) (Unintelligible) (Laughs) (Unintelligible) Okay. Three brothers and a sister. Okay. Anything special about your family history? Were they immigrants to the United States or? UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 6 No. They—their grandparents were, but I guess some of them came from Canada. Some of them on my mother’s side came from Wales, but my mother and father were both born in Southern Utah. Okay. What about your ethnic ancestry? Well, my grandparents were French and they came—on my father’s side—and they came from the Canada area. And then, on my mother’s side was Welsh. Of course (unintelligible) Idaho, Utah areas. What other places have you lived and travelled in your lifetime? Well, I lived in Cedar City, Utah. I lived in Salt Lake City when I was in nurses training, prior to that also. And when my husband was in the service, I travelled. Colorado, Arizona, California, Florida. (Unintelligible) Give us a little bit of your occupation history. Where you worked and what types of nursing you’ve done in the past. My first schooling, I graduated from (unintelligible) High School in 1941, and I did have a scholarship to Dixie, which was a junior college at that time, which I did not take. I took a correspondence course that was supposed to have given me a secretarial job at the conclusion of it. However, (laughs) one of those (unintelligible), and so I didn’t finish my education as far as college. I—my husband, I was married when I was twenty. My husband was a pilot and was in the service. And I travelled with him until he was sent overseas. And then, after he was killed in action, then, is when I decided to go back into nursing school. (Unintelligible) When was that? That was in 1943. I was married in 1943 and he was killed in 1945, March, 1945. And where were you? UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 7 I went to nurses training at Holy Cross Hospital in Salt Lake in September 1945 through 1948. After you finished nursing training, what did you do? Nurses training at that time at Holy Cross—we went to (unintelligible). We stayed at Saint Mary’s at the Wasatch. We had some (unintelligible), and I had a little difficult time because I had been out of school for a couple of years, and I wasn’t sure that I was going to stay in nursing. Every time a plane went over, I, you know, (unintelligible) to the wayside. I had a little difficulty. Most of the girls I was in training with were all right out of high school. Fortunately (unintelligible) girl who was older than I was. I was twenty-two, but she was twenty-six. And she had worked as a nurse’s aid in the hospital in (unintelligible) in Utah. Her name was Agnes (unintelligible) and she became a very special friend of mine. And I was (unintelligible) with us being older. It was helpful here to have her working. I decided that, at the time I was concluded my education there at Saint Mary’s, that part of the training, if by the time I got to the hospital I didn’t want to go, you know I didn’t want to stay in nursing, I’d at least have those credits, and then I could (unintelligible) something else. But by the time I’d gone down to the hospital in that short time, I really didn’t think about quitting nursing after that. And the three years that we were in training seemed like they just went by lot, and I enjoyed all of the—all of the training. Let’s see, what was special about nurses training. We had us a little orchestra and I played the cello, which was, I had been in high school. Was not that well, but then that led by the wayside also, so I knew that that, I did receive the Outstanding Nurse of our class upon graduation. That was something, you know, from the class nominations, which made me very happy. When we graduated from the class, and that was in 1948. And then when it came time to take state boards, I had not had any information—my husband’s body had not been got home. He was killed over in Korea. And about two weeks UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 8 before I took state boards, I was so worried that his body was going to be shipped home, which, you know, which upset me. And I thought that I would not pass state boards because of the situation, however, I was very happy to learn that I did. (Laughs) I’m stopping the tape for a phone call. Okay Thelma, tell me after state boards, where did you work and what kind of experiences you had? I went to work back at Holy Cross Hospital in the OB department, which I liked very much. And I worked there for about a year and then I got married and moved to Cedar City, Utah. And I also worked at the hospital in Cedar City. The Iron County Hospital, which (unintelligible). And it was in 19-1950. And then I came to Henderson after (unintelligible) service in Colorado. I didn’t work during that time. And I had one child. And so then we came to Rose de Lima and moved here in ‘52. (Unintelligible) city as this, so I didn’t here until 1954. At that time I had two children, one in 1953 and my youngest one in 1954. What was St. Rose de Lima like when you started there? The nuns were at work later when I came, and Sister (unintelligible), she was in charge of the OB department, which she was for many years. At that time, we were—we took care of the delivery room and the nursery in combination. We’d get preemies or (unintelligible). It was—it was busy. It was heavy. I had (unintelligible) at one time. There’s, at that time, (Laughs) we didn’t get overtime. At that time, I’m not sure whether or not we even were getting social security (unintelligible) social security as far as nursing goes. I worked at Rose de Lima in OB and Nursery until 1956. And I had a friend that was gonna be a (unintelligible) in Arizona, and they needed a nurse down there, and I needed a change, so, she and her husband moved me down to—it was called Sierra, (unintelligible) test station. And I worked there for about a year and a UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 9 half, and then I came back to Las Vegas area, Henderson. I worked on Nellis Air Force Base. I worked there from 1957, and there again I worked in the OB and nursery. They had a large (unintelligible), Nellis. And then we had several preemies, in fact, while I was out there, we had five, six preemies. (Unintelligible) at the time wasn’t, which, some woman, I’m not sure who, did a study at that time, which they felt that the military life had something to do that was conducive with premature babies. And, I liked Nellis. At that time I was working there, I decided I wanted to go to Hawaii. I’d always wanted to and I had a girlfriend who was in (unintelligible) who—we had talked about moving together, and then she went into the service and, so I started thinking about it, and in 1961, I went to Honolulu planning to go work, or hopefully planning to go to work at the (unintelligible) Air Force Base, which has a large hospital. But when I arrived there, they did not have any openings at (unintelligible) and so I went to work at Kaiser Foundation and I spent what I’d called it a good time. And I went again. The first two weeks, I worked in OB while the supervisor was on vacation. I had told them I had my application with (unintelligible) General Hospital. At the time that she returned from her vacation, there still was not a vacancy at (unintelligible). They had a vacancy in the recovery room, and so I had to get my children in school. I had four children who were school age. And so I decided that I would stay—I would stay (unintelligible) and I would get the children on time, and I didn’t have transportation over there, so I could come back to work. It took me about a half hour to get to work. And I stayed at Kaiser Hospital from 1961 until 1963. I had a very positive experience there. I thoroughly enjoyed the different races that worked at the hospital. One of my very special friends was a Japanese girl, and she was married to a Haole. And then our supervisor was a Korean girl. We all got along very well and I enjoyed UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 10 the recovery room, working there. And then I came back home in 1963, Henderson, my home. (Laughs) For clarification’s sake, what is a Haole? Is that (Unintelligible) A Caucasian. Oh, a Caucasian. Okay (Laughs) And then I came back in 1963, I’d been over there for two years, and my home here, was vacant, so I came back to Henderson. I had planned to go back to Nellis Air Force Base, however, they needed a nurse at the Henderson Clinic. Dr. Taber was a surgeon—Dr. Taber was a surgeon and he had recently moved to the area, and I (unintelligible) by him and accepted the position at Henderson Clinic, at which time I worked from 1963 until 1976, I guess. And then from there, I went down to Timet in Henderson. And there it was seven and a half years I think, with occupational health. What kind of duties did you have at the Henderson Clinic? Dr. Taber was a surgeon so we had (unintelligible) surgical patients with (unintelligible). An interesting experience because you see people (unintelligible) to the hospital and follow them through their illnesses, and see them after they get well, cause then they turned up at the clinic for post-operative care. We had a fair amount of trauma (unintelligible). We did not have enough (unintelligible) in Henderson part of that time. So Dr. Taber, the surgeon, was usually (unintelligible) from lacerations, that kind of thing. Your occupational history is (unintelligible), and before we get to specific nursing questions, I need to ask about history of illnesses in your family. You mentioned that two of your siblings died very young and (unintelligible) UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 11 I’m not sure. I know when I was a child, I used to say I wanted to be a nurse. And then I recall when my grandfather was chopping logs up in the mountains, and the axe slipped and he had a large laceration on his leg and he got very ill, and then I decided I did not want to be a nurse (Laughs) (Laughs) And then, when I was in the service with my husband, two of the pilots’ wives were nurses and I became interested in their conversation, with those girls. And that was, I think, started my interest again. And I also had a cousin that went to Holy Cross Hospital. And I talked with her after I made up my mind to go into nursing. I had a visit with her, and so that was why I chose Holy Cross Hospital. What (unintelligible) did your family there? You mean as a child? Mm-hmm. Oh, a great deal. My father and mother had a home. My grandparents, both sides of the family, the Jones’ and the Lamoreaux’ lived in Paragonah. (Unintelligible) my dad did work for the state (unintelligible) with his team of horses for many years. And that was a source of income. We certainly did not have a great deal, but seemed to manage fairly well. Were your parents interested or wanting their children to get a good education and realize the importance of work? They did. They were—they were happy with everything that we could do and they always encouraged us financially, they, you know, they’d kind of assist us. It was realistic to us. I think in my (unintelligible) of people, from the time you were eighteen and out of high school, then you were expected to be, to be on your own. UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 12 What special skills and interests do you have? I really haven’t a lot of special skills. I have a lot of interests. I have—some of the things I like are ceramics, (unintelligible) just really small, now in Nevada. I should say I want to get into that again one day. I’m not sure how that’s gonna be. I’ve done a little bit of macramé, a little sewing, and handicrafts, I like. Different kind of handicrafts? As far as having any expertise in any of them, (Laughs) I don’t really. What about intellectual interests? Nursing, you’ve done many different types of nursing, so how does—you were interested in babies at one time because of all your nursery experience? I loved OB, really. There wasn’t a part of nursing that I didn’t like. I think I liked the surgical, and I liked OB. When I was in OB, I liked OB. When I was doing surgical nursing, I liked surgical nursing. And now that I’ve been in occupational, I like that so— (Laughs) Occupational nursing is a very new field. How do you think it differs as far as nursing responsibilities to the typical hospital? Well, I think it depends on the company. The size of the company and the product of the company. (Unintelligible) legally what they’re responsible for. I think all those things make the difference. At Timet, where I’ve been, we found a doctor to come once a week, forty-five minutes to an hour, three times a week. And then, so that, I have a responsibility to determine the accidents that they—that I can handle and take care of them or (unintelligible) to x-ray and to a doctor. And a lot of things that keep (unintelligible) a lot of judgements that you make, sometimes that you don’t always (unintelligible) in the office, ‘cause the doctor is there all the time. UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 13 What church membership and activities are part of your life? Well I’ve always belonged to the LDS church. I was baptized when I was eight years old. At that time, you were baptized in (unintelligible). The water was banked, it was deep enough for you to be baptized. It was a delight to have my father baptize me. And I’ve always—I’ve always gone to church, wherever I’ve been. There’s always been something in it has been actually the most important thing I think, in my life, because it’s been the guiding (unintelligible). In a way, it’s been my direction. I came out here and the church helped me make some of my decisions. I don’t think I made lots of wrong decisions, but, I think that I always tended to do better. (Unintelligible) (Laughs) Okay. My husband just told me I better LDS church means Latter Day Saints. The Church of Jesus Christ of Ladder Day Saints. Do you think that your church membership has influenced your work (unintelligible)? I’m sure that it has. People—people know what church you belong to, if you’re an active member, I think. And, sometimes it doesn’t make any difference. As I said, I trained in a Catholic hospital. I had never been around Catholic religion, but that was a new experience, and it was a good experience. And I have a great many friends who are Catholics and some of the sisters, as I say again I always refer to Sister (Unintelligible) because she was at Rose de Lima and was another special person to me. There were other nuns that I enjoyed in training, also. But I think maybe knowing other religions also helped me to be stronger in my religion. What memberships and organizations do you belong to? In the church (unintelligible)? Or occupationally. Either one. UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 14 Within the church, I have—I’ve been on the stake board as a moral class leader. We do young women’s program. And then I’ve been camp nurse on a stake level and on a ward level. Gone to camp several years. I’ve been a teacher and (unintelligible) representative, all those kinds of things. And, the nursing—I belong to the Nevada Nurses Association, the district, and the state. And initially, American Nurses Association, which—when it was a tri level. I’ve worked on the legislative committee. I worked on the economics and general welfare committee, on the advisory committee, the archives committee. These are all out of the Nevada Nurses Association? Nevada Nurses Association, right. Eliminations committee, board of directors, vice-president—first vice president. When (unintelligible)? On the district level, I was vice president from 1966 through’68. And I was on the board of directors from ’69 through ’71. And then, on the state level, NNA, then I was President from 1974 through 1976, a two year period. And then following that, then I went to advisory council for the past president (unintelligible) advisory council for (unintelligible) archives. Then I went into the archives committee for several years. Do you think the memberships and the advocacy in associations has broadened your nursing expertise? Or how do you think it’s affected your career? I’m sure it has. It’s been very important to me to remember all the nurses of the Nevada Nurses Association, American Nurses Association, because of the—what am I trying to say—well, because of the high standards that I feel that the Nurses—American Nurses Association foster. And I feel that if all nurses belong to the American Nurses Association, we would have a lot UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 15 more unity in the profession than we have today. Membership has decreased over the past few years as the dues have increased. I’ve always thought that was, as a professional, it was our duty to pay dues and support the organizations because that’s the only way we have input. And membership is very low compared to the number of nurses that we have here in Clark County as well as around the state. (Tape one ends) Okay Thelma, we can continue. You were just talking about your professional organizations you belong to and how they helped you with your career. Tell me some key points in your life. In the nursing? In your whole life. In my whole life? We’re interested in all aspects of your life. Well, this one happens to be nursing, but one of the experiences that I cherish was going to the International Nurses Convention in Frankfurt, Germany in 1965. That was another of my wanted once, for why, I don’t know, I couldn’t really afford it, but I borrowed a thousand dollars (Laughs) and decided I was going whether anyone else was going or not. And then one of the girls that I worked with at Henderson Clinic had recently lost her husband, and those, the doctors asked me to—they felt like (unintelligible) too or should maybe get away for a while. And so I talked to her about it, and she became interested, and so then the two of us went together. That was (unintelligible). And that was a three week tour. It was one of the most fascinating things, I think. UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 16 Well that experience was—when we went down the Rhine River, we were a thousand nurses to each boat. And I spent the day on the Rhine River, and I tried to take pictures, and I’d look up at one side and I didn’t realize there were so many castles. I didn’t realize—I said, that America was so young, you know, when I saw all the castles that were in Europe and the beautiful architecture. And the fact that those German nurses could put on a convention, an international convention, and have people on time. It seemed like we picked up the bus and went down to where we were to take the boat, and it was just like clockwork. I don’t remember of any hitches at all, and we got on the boat, just spent hours on the boat, then came back, and it was a lot to do. You know, a lot to see. We saw a lot in the three weeks we were there. We went into Switzerland as well. But the convention was right in Frankfurt. They—they had the convention transcribed in four languages if I remember correctly. And we went to Munich, which was another good experience. We held our breath more than once when those big busses went down those little narrow streets (Laughs) over there. (Laughs) Then we did get to go to the hospitals. The only thing, we did not have anyone that could communicate in English at the time. But we were each supposed to have an experience in the hospitals. And, we saw a nursery (unintelligible) I guess that we were interested in, (unintelligible) that we could understand, however. And, I was interested in the little bassinets that they had, a type of (unintelligible) usually wrapped around the babies (unintelligible) blankets. They had a loose little fluff that just went on the top of them. And the other thing that was interesting was just, you don’t realize how much we have in America. We—the driver, the guide of the tour kept telling us don’t expect in Europe what you have in America as first class, because it doesn’t happen. And when we got into the hotel, I understood what he meant, because UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 17 they had a little coin (unintelligible) bowl in the lamp, and maybe you had a sink in there, and you had to go down the hall to the bathroom or the shower, whatever it was, but it was still a first class hotel. (Laughs) So that was—that was interesting. And just meeting and hearing stories of the nursing problems that they have in other parts of the country, it was a real experience. Were the nursing standards different between Europe and the Americas? Usually it’s, as I remember, we had some of the same kinds of problems. The only thing—it seemed that we had a lot more in the ways of supplies than some of the other countries did. And it seemed like they had the medications. There was different ways, as I understood it, the hospital sounded like they were probably different, because the families went in and sometimes the families took food into the hospitals. And they, some of the family members stayed, you know, for a period of time. Our regulations were visiting hours, which, you know, two hours, one hour, whatever. And over there, it was—the visiting hours was different. Did the family come in and stay because there weren’t enough nurses or—? (Unintelligible) That was my understanding. I think probably because of the lack of nursing, and they assisted. Which makes you think now, going back to home care, here in the United States, maybe we would do just as well again in that type of care. What was some of the motivational aspirations that you had or goals in your life that you acheived? Well, I guess going to Hawaii (Laughs). And I really don’t know what motivated me to want to go to Europe, except, maybe just general interest in nursing. And another experience that I had was during my—the presidency of the NNA, I was able to go to the Bicentennial convention, UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 18 which was held in Atlantic City, New Jersey. And that was a good experience for all of us in presidency, executive directors from the states were able to march in the procession. So, that was plenty experience to (unintelligible). Just mingling with the nurses from the other states and hearing their problems, it seemed like we always came away feeling that even though Nevada was a small state, that—that still nursing was still rather active and had updated with nurses in Nevada. So that gave you an insight into how Nevada compared with other larger metropolitan areas? The western—the smaller western states, you know, still have their problems. And I think they, you know, they, work that out by caucusing now as a group, and I think that has been helpful, which is something that is now done at the—at the conventions. We’re stopping for another phone call. Thelma, you mentioned that the western states, or the western region—small hospitals were having problems. What kind of problems are you speaking of? Not really the hospitals, the small states, but I think what I was referring to was that smaller states do not have the number of representatives that New York and California and Texas, that the larger states. And sometimes I think that they feel like they’re outnumbered. Representatives at conventions? Right. And they didn’t have, maybe they, just felt like we were outnumbered. Really, we had so many votes per population, per nursing population. But some of those states have done a lot of things on their own that the ANA has not always approved of. And so— A change in nursing standards or what? UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 19 They’ve gone out on their own, some of the nurses. Not necessarily standards, but some of the activity, likely. And I think that the—I think that with such a large group at convention, it was hard for the advisory council to make decisions, because they had a lot of interference from—so many of the states did not agree, and it just seemed like you would go for hours and hours and hours. What sort of issues were you discussing? Well, it, really, any of the issues that we had at hand, which was education, certification, recertification, and the structure, (unintelligible) the structure, which was recently been changed to federation now. And that was in the making for several years. The position paper that came out in 1965 helped the nursing wages, those kinds of things were all issues. And the smaller states, I think, as well as California, sort of leads throughout the west. And they’ve always led in the wage too, the wages have always been higher in California. And their collective bargaining groups were started in many hospitals where were already under a collective bargaining contract before Nevada even had experiences with them, with negotiating collective bargaining. What other key points do you remember? Well, some of the things that occurred, some of the issues during the ’74-’76 was NNA President became dealt with long term certification. And then later, we were, by we, I mean they, was accredited by the American Nurses Association. And as you might know, that we have continuing education as part of re-licensing. And, we, I think, were early on to learn some of the pitfalls of the voluntary certification and what had to be changed, which made the program more beneficial. And I think that some of our ideas really passed on to others at the advisory council and the western executive secretary—I mean, executive directors meetings. And then somebody acknowledged the general welfare issues were on the go. They were sort of priority type things UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 20 when I was in the presidency. And at that time, we had Rose de Lima and we never did get a contract with Rose de Lima Hospital, but there was bargaining and we did have a bargaining unit. Also, the Elko General Hospital, in Elko, Nevada. Some of the other things that were our special interest groups, which was the continuing education and the nursing service administrators, the school nurses, the private (unintelligible) nurses. And then, I think they updated the policy manual during that time. And, another they issue they talked about a lot was central billing, whether or not the states—how the states should pay their dues. And this was always a big issue. That—when I first went into presidency in 1974, we met in Elko, and the decision we made to increase the dues was challenged by one of our nurses in Reno, and that was necessary to go through our parliamentarian, and also send it to ANA for clarification. And what we had done was, was correct. We had no problem there. And I think another thing that, that was a big problem, with the economic and general welfare, was the frustrations of the nursing administrators. Because they weren’t sure which side of the fence they were supposed to be on. And they had—they had problems. Some of the directors of nurses felt like they were management, which they were, and they felt like they couldn’t support the nurses, which was not necessarily so because, there were those who did assist nurses in their program. And it’s all about difficulty. And I think that caused some contention between the nurses and the director at that time. Now are you speaking of the nurses wanting to organize, in a sort of union effort, or just get a clearer job description, and better wages, and that sort of thing? Well, they did want—they did attempt to organize at Rose de Lima. And, however, it was not voted. It’s like anything else, there’s a—you have to have so many members that belong to the UNLV University Libraries Thelma Jenkins 21 group. And then you have to go over the guidelines of the (unintelligible). So you have to follow those directions, which we did. It was an interesting experience. I think that everyone learned from it, even though we did not get a contract at Rose de Lima Hospital. And I think that part of the problem was the nurses were just not educated to understand the program. Since then, they’ve had more classes regarding—there has not been any other area in Clark County that has a contract. However, in Reno area, they did collective bargaining for the school nurses. And to this day, they have a contract, and they renegotiate each, I think it’s two years when their contract is over. You work at Timet, which is a union organization, or I should say has union employees. But you don’t belong to the union do you? No. Tell me more about occupational health and occupational nursing. I see some AAOH newsletters. Are you a member of the Occupational Health Nurses Association? Yes I am. We don’t have a chapter in this area. About five years ago, I attempted to get a chapter. I think it takes about thirteen members (unintelligible) in this area. We had nurses from the plants here in Henderson area as well as over at Hoover Dam. We have nurses from the air—the airport, and (unintelligible). I’m sure we had enough and there was some interest, but it just has never been done. Because I guess, someone has to push it (Laughs). I just let it go to the wayside. But I think it would be helpful. Even the things that helped recently was, at least for me, was, since, we met as a group (unintelligible) GTE and worked there and (unintelligible) and the four of us exchanged ideas and I think that has helped us. I think we really should have a group, and I think that we—there isn’t