As a longtime BSA member (64 years), I have attended all but two BSA annual meetings and have literally rubbed shoulders with some of the best and most famous botanists in the world (in audience at my first talk as a young graduate student were Ledyard Stebbins, Katherine Esau, Ernest Gifford and Vernon Cheadle)! How fortunate (and scared) can one be! And now as a long-time member of BSA, I reflect on how I have committed part of my professional outside-of-the-university time in a variety of ways to the Society—they include financial support, oral and poster presentations, publications in AJB, section chair, committee member, Board of Directors and Council member, Treasurer, and yes, President. All of these involvements have been extremely rewarding to me both professionally and personally.