Memphis ‘07

Gerri and Owen Amann hosted the Seventh Annual Shanghai Expatriate Reunion in Memphis, Tennessee on October 4-7, 2007. The Westin Hotel Beale Street was selected as reunion headquarters.

 As in past reunions, several went off for a golf outing on Oct. 5th while the rest of us had a wonderful tour of the city of Memphis. We had knowledgeable guides that told us of the past and present history of the area.

 The highlights of this tour was the downtown area, Mississippi Riverfront and Mud Island, Cotton Row, Beale Street, National Civil Rights Museum (site of Martin Luther King's assassination), and the new basketball colosseum – Auto Zone Park. We drove by St. Jude Children's Hospital which was founded by Danny Thomas to fight children's cancer and ended the tour at the Belz Gallery which holds one of the largest private collections of Chinese and Asian artifacts.

 That evening the “Meet and Greet” was held at Pat O’Brien’s on Beale Street where we had cocktails and a buffet dinner. Elvis was in the house and thanked us Vurrry much for comin’ to his city.

 Saturday we took a tour of Elvis’ Graceland. If you’ve never been, it’s a stop and see at least once in your lifetime event. We toured the house and grounds and then had a short tour of more of the city on the way back to the Westin. We were on our own then to wander around to look at the shopping on Beale Street or go to see the Peabody Ducks walk to their elevator and up to their penthouse apartment on the roof of the Peabody Hotel. 

 That evening we got dressed in our finest, had a wonderful banquet meal up in one of the Westin banquet rooms, gave away door prizes that some of the expats had brought with them, and voted on the location for the 2008 Shanghai Expat Reunion. The next one will be in Chicago, Illinois and will be hosted by Kathie and Dave Sherman and Ray and Sue Jones.