1986: A LOOK BACK: Ukrainian National Association (12/28/86)

1986: A LOOK BACK

Ukrainian National Association

During 1986, the Ukrainian National Association turned 92 and held its 31st Regular Convention on May 26 through 30 in Dearborn, a suburb of Detroit. UNA assets surpassed $55 million.

At the convention, John Flis was re-elected supreme president over former supreme president Joseph Lesawyer. The only newcomers to the Supreme Assembly were Leonid Fil and Alex Chudolij, who were elected supreme advisors. Two assembly members, Supreme Advisor Anna Haras, who ran for supreme vice-presidentess, and supreme auditor Dr. Bohdan Hnatiuk, who ran for re-election to that position, lost bids for office. Stefan Hawrysz, whose position as supreme organizer was eliminated as an elective office, was voted in as a supreme auditor.

The convention was addressed by Deputy Secretary of Defense William Howard Taft IV, and a message from President Ronald Reagan was read at the convention banquet.

Especially noteworthy was the convention's approval of an amendment to the UNA By-Laws that gives the UNA Supreme Assembly authority to establish a UNA board of directors for Canada which will conduct UNA activities in that country under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Executive Committee. The amendment also provided for an office and a separate budget for the UNA's Canadian operations.

Sen. Paul Yuzyk, the UNA's supreme director for Canada, died on July 9 following a brief battle with cancer (see "Deaths in the community"). At an extraordinary session of the Supreme Assembly convened on October 4, that body elected Supreme Auditor John Hewryk as the new Canadian director. His position on the Auditing Committee, in turn, was filled by Leonid Fil, a newly elected supreme advisor. Myron Spolsky, a young Winnipegger, was elected to fill the resultant vacancy among the supreme advisors.

The long-talked-about merger of the UNA and the Ukrainian Fraternal Association was nixed by the latter's convention delegates in June, when they adopted a resolution stating that the time was not ripe for merger, but that talks should be renewed on this matter when the need arises.

Back at the home office in Jersey City, the Supreme Executive Committee on July 1 named Henry Floyd the association's first national sales director. Last time we checked, Mr. Floyd was busy hiring and training a professional sales force for Batko Soyuz.

Also during 1986, the UNA on June 15, Father's Day, dedicated a new senior citizens residence at Soyuzivka. The 10-room building is seen as the first phase of seniors housing at and near the upstate New York resort.

Another highlight of year was the Op Sail party at the UNA headquarters overlooking the Hudson River. UNA'ers from far and near - 400 of them - marvelled at the bird's eye view of the parade of ships marking Lady Liberty's centennial that they saw from atop the UNA building.

This was the year that the UNA sponsored the U.S. tour of a Ukrainian men's chorus from Poland, Zhuravli; published a book about the massacre of 10,000 Ukrainians at Vinnytsia by the NKVD (Soviet secret police) in both the Ukrainian and English languages by the late Svoboda editor-in-chief emeritus Anthony Dragan (see "Deaths in the community"); co-sponsored and provided the funding for a teachers' seminar on the Great Famine of 1932-33 organized by Supreme Vice-President Myron B. Kuropas (see "Documentation of the famine"); and initiated an amicus curiae brief supporting the Supreme Court appeal of a Lithuanian emigre whose case will have direct impact on thousands of East Europeans who emigrated to this country after World War II (see "The hunt for Nazis").

As usual, the UNA remembered its student members, allocating a new record amount of scholarship aid for 1986-87 - $110,000 - to 217 students throughout the United States and Canada.

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