ofion news

Carolinas-Tennessee Building Materials Association and Virginia Building Material Association have completed their merger.

Since the newly formed Southern Building Material Association operates on a July through June fiscal year, each chapter will have six representatives on the board for the remainder of this year. Starting July l, each chapter will have four members on the new board.

Representing Virginia, David Cappellari and Jack Williams will serve as directors until this summer, Tim Tobin and Freddy Siewers until next year, and Bruce Edwards and Joe Mullen until 2OO2. Jim Van Landingham is 3rd vice chair.

VBMA's Cindy Hartley remains as director of SBMA's Virginia Chapter.

Construction Suppliers Association is sponsoring an "Art of Getting Paid" seminar March 29 at the

Holiday Inn, McDonough, Ga., and a truss roundtable April 30-May 2 atthe Holiday Inn-Skytop, Rome, Ga.

Kentucky Lumber & Building Material Dealers Association is holding a small projects estimating class Feb. 28 and a residential framing lumber estimating seminar Feb. 29-March 2 at the Executive Inn, Louisville.

Greater Houston Lumber & Building Material Dealers Associ. ation is seeking applications for its seventh annual scholarships. Deadline is Feb. 28. They will be presented at the annual barbecue and membership meeting in May.

Mid-America Lumbermens Association has installed Pat Thorne, Pat Thorne Lumber Co., Chillicothe, Mo., as pres., succeeding John Humphreys, The Home Lumber & Supply Co., Ashland, Ks.

Upcoming MLA events include the annual Expo Feb. 18-19 at the Crown Center Exhibit Hall, Kansas City, Mo.; a basic estimating school March 9-10 in Oklahoma City, Ok., and a "Riding the Waves of the Web" seminar March 23 in Sedalia. Mo.

New Lawn & Garden Website

E*Garden, Inc., Raleigh, N.C., has reportedly launched the first businessto-business e-commerce Web site for the lawn & garden industry.

The site (www.egarden.com) features an auction for surplus and rare merchandise, and in the spring plans to open a Wholesale Store for product sales.

Linda Watson is company president; Peter Loewer, a garden writer, editor and illustrator, is contributing editor in charge of the online newsletter, and Catherine Maxwell, director of associate relations.