AHEPA e-News! - Vol. 09 Issue 35 - Wednesday, September 2, 2015


Rep. Kelly
Congresswoman Kelly Joins Hellenic Caucus
AHEPA welcomes U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL) as the newest member to the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, announced Supreme President John Galanis.  

"We thank Congresswoman Kelly for joining the Caucus," Galanis said. "We look forward to working with her, and her staff, on issues of importance to the American Hellenic community. We also thank the grassroots efforts of Ahepans in Region Six for their collective outreach to the congresswoman."

Membership in the Hellenic Caucus now stands at 124.
 
Inaugural AHEPA HOF Member Passes Away
AHEPA mourns the passing of former University of Kentucky and Boston Celtics basketball star, Lou Tsioropoulos, who died Aug. 22, 2015, in Louisville, Ky. He was 84. 

Tsioropoulos was a member of the heralded inaugural AHEPA Hellenic Athletic Hall of Fame, Class of 1975, which included the likes of Harry Agganis, Alex Karras, Jim Londos, and Milt Pappas.  He played on Kentucky's 1951 championship team and won two titles while playing with the Celtics. 
Tsioropoulos

Brother Gregory J. Stamos, chairman, AHEPA Hall of Fame Selection Committee, noted, "The Greek-American Sports community lost one of its icons." 

Lou, a native of Lynn, Mass., where he was Agganis' classmate, averaged 14.5 points per game in his senior season at Kentucky. He was later inducted into the University of Kentucky's Basketball Hall of Fame.  In 1953-1954, his senior year, Kentucky enjoyed a 25-0 season, the only undefeated final season record in Kentucky basketball history. Tsioropoulos was survived by his wife, Jan, a daughter, Tara, and two grandchildren.

SP Galanis (left) presents a gift to PSP Frangos.

Testimonial Held for PSP Phillip Frangos
The AHEPA family gathered for a testimonial dinner in honor of immediate Past Supreme President Phillip T. Frangos held Aug. 29, 2015, Lansing, Mich.

Supreme President John Galanis attended and presented PSP Frangos with a gift in recognition of his service to the Order. 

Proceeds from the testimonial dinner will go toward AHEPA's campaign to help rebuild Saint Nicholas National Shrine at World Trade Center.
WASHINGTON UPDATE
 












ACTION ITEM: Help Us Grow the Hellenic Caucus!
AHEPA asks that you help us to grow the Congressional Caucus on Hellenic Issues, especially as members of Congress are in their congressional districts during the August recess.  The Hellenic Caucus has been an active, bipartisan group in Congress since its founding in 1995.  It is co-chaired by U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY)  
Membership in the Hellenic Caucus stands at 124.
REBUILD SAINT NICHOLAS SHRINE CAMPAIGN


 
THANK YOU!

Our #RebuildStNicholas campaign webpage has been updated to reflect the many generous donations we received over the summer.
 
ICYMI: Nearly $115,000 in donations to the campaign to help rebuild Saint Nicholas National Shrine at World Trade Center were announced by AHEPA family entities at the 93rd Grand Banquet held July 4 in San Francisco. 

TAKE ACTION!
Has your district or chapter organized a fundraiser for the campaign to #RebuildStNicholas?  Take action and support AHEPA's campaign today!  Please tweet about your fundraising activity by using #RebuildStNicholas to share your work with the broader community!
 

The Ahepan
NEW! The summer 2015 edition of 
The Ahepan is out! Catch highlights from the 41st Biennial Congressional Banquet, the AHEPA Family Leadership Excursion, and AHEPA's participation at the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery March for voting rights. Of course, catch up on all the grassroots work of our chapters.

Click the icon to read the digital edition -- share with friends and family!
Upcoming Events
 
September
9 - Supreme President visits Archbishop Demetrios, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America, New York City
9- Supreme President visits The National Herald, New York City
10 - Supreme President calls on members of Congress, Washington, DC
25-27 - AHEPA Leadership meetings in Washington, DC
26 - Installation Dinner hosted by Chapter 542
27 - Past Grand President Anna Helene Grossomanides Testimonial, Corona, N.Y.

October
3 - Supreme Vice President visits Denver, Colo. and Cheyenne, Wyo.
2-4 - District 5 Wildwood Weekend Reunion
8-11 - Supreme President visits Region 10 Workshop, Stuttgart, Germany
16-17 - Supreme President to attend Archon event, New York City
18 - Supreme President to visit Chapter 72, District 5, Trenton, N.J.

November
6 - Northeast Regional Banquet - Boston, Mass.
9- Supreme President visit Houston Area Chapters
14 - Supreme President visits Atlanta for Leadership Conference in Region 1
17-21 - TBA National AHEPA Golf Tournament,  Reunion, Fla.

December
5 - Supreme President visit Evzone AHEPA Chapter Initiation/Instillation - West Chester, N.Y.
12 - Supreme President visits St. Basil's Academy for Christmas Party
13 - Supreme President visits Archangel Michael event in Port Washington, N.Y.

January
6, 2016 - Epiphany Celebrations, Tarpon Springs, Fla.
Greek American  
News Digest

 
Supreme Court President Vassiliki Thanou to become first woman to be Greek prime minister - ANA MPA - August 27 - Supreme Court President Vassiliki Thanou will be sworn in as caretaker prime minister of Greece, making her the first Greek woman to become the country's premier, at 20:00 on Thursday evening, the Greek presidency announced. After unsuccessful bids to form a government by the leaders of the top three parties in Parliament, President of the Republic Prokopis Pavlopoulos announced that he was now activating the procedures ordained by the Constitution, according to which the head of one of the three supreme courts of Greece is assigned the task of forming a caretaker government having the broadest possible acceptance in order to hold elections...read more

Tsipras still has the edge in pro-euro Greece, say analysts - Yahoo News - August 31 - With just three weeks to go before Greece's snap elections, analysts say charismatic ex-premier Alexis Tsipras remains popular with an electorate determined to stay in the euro -- even if it means more painful austerity.  Opinion polls show Tsipras in first place for the September 20 vote, with his far-left Syriza party ahead of its main rivals, the New Democracy conservatives, by between 1 and 3.5 points...read more

Greece on the Edge - The Weekly Standard - September 1 - When James Angelos embarks on a series of trips to report on the Greek debt crisis, he finds that no one is to blame for it. On Zakynthos, for example, three-quarters of blindness disability beneficiaries were exposed as frauds. The island's ophthalmologist had liberally handed out certificates of blindness, countersigned by the prefect. Angelos approaches the prefect first: "The doctor!" he says. "Only he has responsibility. The doctor puts you down as blind. Not the prefect." Angelos duly interviews the ophthalmologist: "One of the people who put down a signature was me," he admits. "Even if there are a thousand signatures, if the prefect doesn't sign it, no one gets anything."... read more

Scientists find way to 'turn off cancer' by reverting cancerous cells to benign tissue - The Independent - August 25 -   Scientists believe they may have found a way to "turn off cancer" by reverting cancerous cells to healthy tissue.
Researchers at the US Mayo Clinic demonstrated a method to turn cancerous breast and bladder cells benign, according to their study published in the Nature Cell Biology.  The study, which although in its early stages has been hailed by cancer charities as "crucial", works by focusing on the PLEKHA7 protein that clumps healthy cells together...read more

Cyprus summit: After decades of division, are Greek and Turkish Cypriots now on the brink of a deal? -
The Independent - September 1 -
The venue couldn't be more neutral - or more resonant. Nicosia Airport is within the UN-supervised no man's land that bisects the island, the dilapidated Trident jet on the tarmac a ghostly reminder that this once thriving eastern Mediterranean hub has been disused and out of bounds since the war of 1974.    An apt setting, therefore, for today's summit meeting at which the President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, and his Turkish Cypriot counterpart, Mustafa Akinci, will try to advance the process of finally reunifying their divided country...read more
 
Ex-CIA Torture Whistleblower John Kiriakou to Receive Prestigious First Amendment Award From PEN Center The Pappas Post - August 28 - Former CIA officer John Kiriakou will receive one of the 2015 PEN First Amendment Awards, one of the most important literary awards in America. The ceremony 
will be held on November 16 in a ceremony in Beverly Hills.
Kiriakou resigned from the CIA in 2004 and came to public attention three years later in 2007 when he gave an interview to ABC News in which he acknowledged the CIA's use of waterboarding as a method of torture. For several years leading up to Kiriakou's big reveal, the CIA had managed to keep secret the scope of its abusive interrogations of Al Qaeda-affiliated prisoners, which had the formal approval of President George W. Bush...read more 

Has the lost palace of Sparta been found? Magical objects and clay tablets suggest ruins belong to Ancient Greece's most famous civilization  - Daily Mail - August 28 - They are thought to have been the ancient civilisation immortalised in Homer's Iliad, having dominated Greece for centuries, before mysteriously disappearing in 1200BC.   But now archaeologists believe they may have found the ruins of a long-lost palace belong used by ancient Sparta's Mycenaean culture.  The palace, which had around 10 rooms, was and was discovered near the village Xirokambi Lakonia, located close to Sparta in southern Greece, and was found filled with archaic inscriptions from between the 17th and 16 centuries BC...read more

Greek-inspired, weeknight-easy: Lamb chops with feta and olives - CSMonitor- August 28 - For me, grabbing lamb when I see it in the store is almost automatic. Ground lamb for weeknight-quick burgers, cooked rare, a leg of lamb for a special holiday feast or maybe lamb rib chops when I'm feeling extravagant. Or, most often, lamb shoulder chops - cheap, flavorful and with a chewiness that can be easily tamed with a trick or two.  One simple tenderizing technique is to dry brine the chops with coarse kosher salt (this works for steaks and pork chops too). Another is to marinate the chops in a liquid that contains acids - they help break down muscle fiber and add flavor, especially when herbs and other aromatics are part of the marinade...read more

CB on the Road: A Food Lover's Guide to Andros - Culinary Backstreets - August 25 -  Some islands, Mykonos and Santorini for example, are known for their temples of gastronomy. Others, like Tinos, Milos, Syros and Sifnos, possess solid reputations for uniformly excellent tavernas. Until recently, Andros, a green anomaly in the treeless, windswept Cycladic chain, had two main attractions for tourists: a world-class modern art museum and a network of well maintained hiking trails. You could get a decent meal after you'd seen the exhibition in Hora or trekked up to a 1,000-year-old monastery or down a river lined with watermills, but it wouldn't be something to write home or Tweet about...read more




 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This is an electronic news service of the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association.
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