Fall/Winter 1998 Poultry Press Volunteers
Meet Joan Holtgraver
UPC Secretary Treasurer

by Karen Davis

It is with great pleasure that I introduce to you Joan Meanor Holtgraver, the Secretary Treasurer of United Poultry Concerns. My friend since our days together at Westminster College in New Wilmington, PA, Joan has been a UPC officer and one of our three directors ever since I founded this organization in 1990. Joan does the indispensable job of keeping our books. She has performed this painstaking ledger labor for eight years now, all without financial recompense. A true volunteer, she says, "This is how I help animals."
Joan Holtgraver with her husband, Sam, and two companions, Rosy and Pearl.
As a matter of fact, Joan helps animals in many ways. For one thing, she's a vegan and a terrific cook. Did you ever wonder who the real "Mrs. Gobble-Good" is? It's Joan! Yes, Joan originated our famous "Mrs. Gobble-Good's Golden Brown Pie." She also created the incomparable "Chickenless 'Chicken' Stew" and "The Red Jungle Fowl's Joy." Check out our cookbook, Instead of Chicken, Instead of Turkey for these fabulous recipes by Joan Holtgraver in her poultry personae.

Joan scrupulously does UPC's bookkeeping while conducting her full-time occupation of home instructor for the Montgomery County (MD) Public School System and teacher of English as a Second Language to students from grades 1 through 12. She and her husband, Sam, have opened their home to many dogs and birds who would otherwise have been homeless. They currently have three adopted companion dogs and nine adopted companion birds. Joan climbs mountains in her spare time. In 1997, she wrote a poem about Salmonella on Thanksgiving morning.

Thanksgiven for humor
by Joan Holtgraver

My salmonella fella
is a very mellow yella,
With a predisposition
toward a shade of green.

When he did his evenin' lickin'
it was poultry he was pickin'
And the chicken we're predictin'
wasn't clean.

I have warned him to be wary,
not to tarry near the dairy
'cause the eggs the markets carry
are bad biz.

He'd better quit his makin' merry
and go veggie in a hurry,
or the bones that they will bury
might be his!

Fall/Winter 1998 Poultry Press Volunteers