In Memoriam – Norris Graser (AKA ‘the Tick’)

Posted on April 20, 2023 by Frank R

(The following was written by James Hohenzy in an email to several others who knew Norris and was provided by Norris’ wife Shelley for publication on the McK website.)

Norris Graser passed about 3 AM, April 16, 2023 AD, Eastern Orthodox Easter Sunday, of a heart attack. Earth has lost one of the most interesting, interested, knowledgeable, pensive, capable, multitalented, moral, decent human beings (with an active, sometimes sardonic sense of humour) it has ever been this writer’s honour to know, much less having been granted the privilege of calling, “close friend.”

Norris remained an active, competent, artful scale modeler, interested in the hobby since single-digit age, especially 1/48 WW II and Post- aircraft and of “recent,” dinosaur kits.

Norris had worked up until the companies’ end with Monogram and (US) Revell and had done consultation, kit-box-buildups and markings research for them.

Norris was a very capable (electric) guitarist with a splendid stable of high quality instruments and possessed a wide knowledge of brands / instruments histories, players, variations.

Norris owned a model decal company (Thundercals) devoted to his passion; Republic P-47 Thunderbolts. No doubt, he was one of the planet’s authorities on the aircraft, markings and kits thereof. He also acquired a large number of other discontinued decals and maintained a casual business, selling them on the cosmicnet and at modeling events.

Norris was a master aviation photographer, historian and historiographer; he maintained relationships where he was able, as recent as last month, travel to military bases and take photos. No question, he has ten or more thousand images.

Norris’ depth of knowledge of and vast, repeat, vast library of “classic” popular, especially guitar-oriented music was whelming.

Norris was a devoted husband to Shelley and father to his son Dave.

Norris was a staunch lover of this country and the best of it and visibly, greatly pained by its decline.

Norris and James shared a love of our canine friends, in his case, “Lil’ Ed”, a big, black lap-Lab who is anything but little. Named for the founder of the Blues Imperials band.

Norris was “dad” to a number of turtles and tortoises and knew a small library about them…Shelley and his son have a serious maintenance job, there.

Norris’ “reptiles” interest was further evident in his knowledge of and skillful,  imaginative modeling of, dinosaurs and kits.

Norris had a phenomenal memory and was super-well-versed on old TV shows / series and campy “monster / space movies”  as well.

Norris competently wrote the IPMS McKinstry newsletter as well…for a long time.

Ralph, ‘gotta stop now. Please pray Norris’ soul is now in the eternal keeping and care of The Almighty. May he remain fondly in our memories and check in on those of us who valued him, from The Beyond.

          James

PS  If any of this is does not strike as truly dotted i-s / crossed t-s accurate to any of you who also knew Nor well, please excuse and forgive; it’s only this writer’s POV…as he remembers a cherished pal.

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Midwest Scale Madness Show – Sept. 9

Posted on March 29, 2023 by Frank R
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Website updates

Posted on February 9, 2023 by Frank R

It’s a new year, the pandemic is winding down, and McK is doing a little introspection.

We’ve started a bit of a membership drive. We’ve printed flyers and are in the process of distributing them to the area hobby stores (independents, Hobbytowns, Michael’s) and other retail outlets (a few Ace Hardware stores) that sell plastic models. We added a ‘Join’ page to the website, as well, to encourage modelers in the area to join McKnstry.

We’ve also made some cosmetic changes to the website to clean up the appearance and use those improvements in the flyer campaign. We’ve literally ‘cleaned up’ one of our logos that had been created in the cut-and-paste days before computer editing was commonplace (the background was kind of a mottled gray, instead of white). Then that logo was added to the webpage banner along with a little text to create a more balanced and pleasing design.

Then we did a little work on the right sidebar to prioritize the content from top to bottom. We removed less useful elements and added some new content (a search bar to find site content, an event calendar to highlight local, regional, and national shows and contests that should be of interest to club members).

We hope you find the new updates useful. More to follow.

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Resumption of Monthly Meetings

Posted on January 20, 2022 by Frank R

The library resumed bookings for the smaller meeting rooms in July 2021, but due to limited hours we had to move meetings to Saturdays around noon for the first few months. The Hendricksen room was reopened in October, but library hours were still somewhat restricted, so we met in October and November on Friday evenings from 7:00 to 8:30PM.

The library continues to close at 9:00PM on Friday for the foreseeable future. In addition, bookings for the Hendricksen room are only available 6 months in advance (bookings were formerly taken for 1 year, September-August). So IPMS McKinstry meetings in the Hendricksen room will be announced on the website as the dates become known, and the time will continue to be from 7-8:30 until further notice.

In cases where the Hendricksen room is unavailable for a particular month, the smaller conference rooms are only reservable 30 days in advance. We will put a placeholder date for a meeting on the website for that month, with a note to check back a month or so in advance to confirm date and location.

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