City. The city of St. Louis was selected because of its central location, a great hotel rate, and the fact that are many interesting things to see and do and there. It turned out to be a good choice.

Reunion Hotel. The reunion was held at the Millennium Hotel in downtown St. Louis. The Millennium is very well located. It is within view and an easy short walk to the Arch and just a few blocks from Busch Stadium. The hotel was extremely accommodating in every aspect. The check-in and out went very well with very few hiccups. The space provided for our CPs and meetings was excellent.

Hotel Contacts. The hotel had an excellent staff. Our sales manager, Rose Latsch, was extremely helpful during the contract phase and, in contrast with other hotel sales people, continued to be so even after we arrived. Our conference service manager was Leo Narens. He was very visible, accessible and professional. He handled things completely and without incident. Kelly Tuttle and her staff at the front desk did a wonderful and professional job handling all our members. We cannot say enough about this staff at the hotel and what a pleasure they were to work with from start to finish.

Hotel Rooms/Prices. We booked a total of 1814 room nights at the Millennium. Our room rate was $90.74 per night including tax. We filled our room block at the Millennium and had to use a nearby Adam's Mark as an overflow for 40 rooms.

Hotel Food and Beverage. The hotel food at our various functions was exceptionally good. The cost per dinner at the banquet was $38.00 for chicken, steak or fish dinner. A kids meal was $15.00. The cost at our conflict breakfasts was $17.00. The Millennium offered us a 10% discount at their restaurants. They also offered a $10.00 breakfast buffet and an $11.00 lunch buffet at their Fourth Street Grill restaurant. Due to the hotel location, our attendees were also able to take advantage of the many fine restaurants in the local area.

Attendance. Our total number of registered attendees was just under 1000. We were again greatly and pleasantly surprised by the attendance of over 300 “First Timers”. Attendance from the active 1 st Infantry Division was over 40.

Our reunion schedule. Our normal reunion schedule runs from Wednesday to Sunday:

1. During the week, we ran tours when there were no reunion activities taking place.

2. Our sales operation (Supply Sarge) was open at convenient hours during the reunion for the purchase of Society merchandise.

3. Our Museum, The First Division Museum at Cantigny, had a prominent operation where books and other historical materials were available for sale, interviews were conducted, videos were shown, photos and artifacts were displayed and questions answered.

4. On Thursday morning, we held a Golf Tournament. That evening we also hosted our annual Welcome Party. One of our units requested a short period of time to present a tribute to the family of one of their founding members. Unfortunately it went on for far too long a time causing general disgruntlement. Afterward we had a performance by a group of senior dancing ladies called the St. Louis Strutters.

5. On Friday, we held our conflict breakfasts (WWII, VN, and DS/Cold War/Iraq) followed by our Unit Meetings. We had a very informative briefing from the National Personnel Records Center. We held our Board of Directors meeting in the late afternoon.

6. On Saturday morning we had our Memorial Service and our Annual Business Meeting. Saturday evening was the annual banquet where we served over 800 dinners. We presented several awards and recognition. We also drew the winners of our very popular raffle. The Division CG was the principal banquet speaker.

Tours. We ran our normal array of approximately ½ -day tours to such places as the Highlights of St. Louis, the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, Cahokia Mounds with a Riverboat Cruise, Grant's Farm, Forest Park, City of St. Louis and Historic St. Charles with a Casino option. We used the Discover St. Louis tour company with good results. Our gamblers found several good casinos, both riverboats and land-based, in the area. We were able to secure 200 tickets for a St. Louis Cardinals/San Diego Padres baseball game, which were sold very quickly.

Hospitality Rooms (CPs). Our traditional system for operating hospitality rooms, which we call CPs, is that most of our line regiments' associations or similar groups run their own hospitality rooms in hotel function space arranged for them by the Society without charge. The concept is that everyone has a ‘home' below the large, amorphous level of ‘division', thereby increasing the possibility of closer association with soldiers of their own unit. The units provide all their own liquor and refreshments in these CPs. Our space requirements for these rooms preclude the use of sleeping suites. Happily, the Millennium had plenty of space to accommodate all our hospitality rooms in close proximity to one another. They also provided bartenders for each CP which satisfied liquor laws. The bartenders were very helpful in many ways.

Miscellaneous.

1. Active Division Support. Our active division once again provided great support for this reunion. The brand new Division CG and his wife took time from their leave to be with us. The Division Command Sergeant Major and his also attended. The Division provided a color guard for our ceremonies and a display with PAO reps. Due to a liberal attendance policy, over 40 personnel from subordinate units at Ft. Riley were also able to attend. The Division CG and CSM gave us a very informative presentation on the many unit changes taking place within the Division. We honored the NCO of the Year and Soldier of the Year.

2. Most of our units have regimental associations whose constitution requires an annual meeting. The Society reunion affords most of them the perfect opportunity for this meeting so we book meeting space for this purpose during our hotel negotiations.

3. Again, this year we did not use a professional photographer. Our museum or members or the 1st Inf Div PAO folks are able to take enough photos for Society purposes such as our newspaper.

Summary. Overall, the Millennium Hotel and the city of St. Louis area proved to be a terrific reunion site. Most aspects of our reunion went very well. Attendance was very good and the vast majority of attendees reported having a great time. There is no doubt that we will return there.

See pictures from past reunions