Letter to Shareholders (John) · Secretary's Report (Karen) · Player Report (Zachary, 11) · Katie's Page (Katie, 8) · Game Day at Our House

Dear fellow shareholders (that's Karen, Zach, Katie, and the dog),

I'm 36 years old, I'm an electrician at one of the paper mills here in the Fox Valley, and I own a piece of the Green Bay Packers. So do about a hundred thousand other people who bought in the last stock sale, plus everybody whose grandparents bought in the old ones. No other team in the NFL works this way. The Packers belong to the fans, the way they have since the early twenties, as a nonprofit company. There's no owner who can move them to Los Angeles. There's us.

When they announced the stock sale in the fall of 1997, Karen and I talked about it for about forty-five seconds. Two hundred dollars. The paperwork made it very clear what we were buying: no dividends, it never goes up in value, it doesn't get you tickets, and you can't sell it except back to the team. You get a vote at the shareholders' meeting and a certificate. We bought it as our Christmas present to the family that year, and it hangs over the TV in a frame from the craft store, where every person who comes in the house has to look at it whether they want to or not.

Some history, for the young shareholders. The team was started in 1919 by Curly Lambeau and George Calhoun, and a meat-packing company here paid for the first uniforms, which is where the name comes from. They joined the league two years later. They've won more championships than anybody, and the most famous of them came under Vince Lombardi, who came in 1959 and won five championships in seven years, including the first two Super Bowls. There's a reason the trophy has his name on it.

The stadium opened in 1957 and was named Lambeau Field in 1965 after Curly died. Karen's dad, Grandpa Marv, was there for the Ice Bowl, the championship game against Dallas on the last day of 1967, when it was thirteen below at kickoff. He still has the wool socks. He says he didn't feel his feet until February.

We don't have season tickets. Nobody we know does, unless they inherited them. The waiting list is longer than I'll be alive. That's fine. We've got a share, and a good couch, and a TV, and that's plenty.

Respectfully submitted,
John

I keep the minutes at church, so I've been asked to keep them here. Minutes of the two most important meetings this household has ever held:

Sunday, January 26, 1997. Super Bowl XXXI, New Orleans. Packers vs. New England.
Present: the whole family, Grandpa Marv, the Hydes from next door, and about nine pounds of brats. The Packers won their first Super Bowl in twenty-nine years. Desmond Howard ran a kickoff all the way back in the second half and was named the MVP, and Reggie White had the game of his life. The secretary notes that the chairman stood on the coffee table, which is against house rules, and that Zachary, then eight, cried, and that the chairman did too, though he says it was the onions. Katie slept through the fourth quarter on the dog. Motion to celebrate: carried unanimously. We drove downtown and honked.

Sunday, January 25, 1998. Super Bowl XXXII, San Diego. Packers vs. Denver.
Present: same. We lost. Denver played a wonderful game and John Elway got his ring after all those years, and if it had to be anybody, I'm glad it was a man who'd waited that long. Katie, then six, asked if we could watch it again so it would come out different. The secretary would like the record to show that the brats were still very good. Meeting adjourned early, quietly.

No scores in these minutes. We know them. You know them. That's enough.

Hi it's Zach. I'm in sixth grade and I play flag football and I'm going to be a sportswriter if I don't make it as a quarterback. Here is the news.

BRETT FAVRE is the best quarterback in football. He won the MVP three years in a row, 1995, 1996 and 1997, which nobody ever did before. (In 1997 he had to share it with Barry Sanders. Barry Sanders is OK.) He came in a trade from Atlanta in 1992 and he's started every game since that fall. He's from Mississippi but we consider him from here now.

REGGIE WHITE retired after last season. He's the Minister of Defense and he came here in 1993 when nobody thought a big free agent would ever pick Green Bay, and then everybody started wanting to come. My dad says he changed everything. I have his poster and I'm keeping it up.

MIKE HOLMGREN left to go coach Seattle in January. He was our coach since 1992 and he took us to two Super Bowls. My mom says we should be happy for him. I'm trying.

RAY RHODES is our new coach. He used to coach the Eagles and before that he was a coach on our defense, so he knows us. This is his first year.

THIS SEASON: It started. We are not allowed to talk about how it's going until it's over, because my dad says talking about it is bad luck. So I'm not. Tomorrow is the Vikings at Lambeau. That's all I'm saying. (GO PACK GO)

Another Packer Backer page we like: BACK TO BACK! The Packers Are Going to San Diego, from a fellow fan up the road. It still says one week to go. We know how that feels.