The 2023 Annual Meeting of the AFoCR’s Board of Directors Held in Nebraska’s Capital City

On Friday, November 10th, 2023, AFoCR held its annual meeting in Lincoln, NE, the state with the highest  per-capita percentage of citizens with Czech ancestry. After the meeting, the directors stayed for a series of adjacent events.

The directors were hosted and guided by our own colleague, John Kotouc, who enabled us to have an extremely enjoyable and enlightening experience in this small, vibrant city in the American heartland, the capital of Nebraska.

During the meeting, the Czech Ambassador Miloslav Stasek gave an interesting and informative overview of the upcoming plans of the Czech Embassy and provided commentary on the Czech-US cooperation in business, culture and other key bilateral priorities. Mr. Jakub Uteseny, the CR’s Counsel General in Chicago also participated in the meeting.

That night, we hosted a reception at the Lied Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Nebraska. Approximately sixty guests were addressed by several speakers, including the Ambassador Stasek, the Professor of the Czech Studies from University of Nebraska Lincoln Mila Saskova-Pierce who is also the honorary counsel of the Czech Republic in Nebraska, and the Director of the Nebraska National Guard, Brigadier General Craig W. Strong, who spoke movingly of the relationship between the Czech and Nebraskan military services. The event concluded with the performance by a talented young performer Rachel Sweeney who sang two opera selections from Antonin Dvorak.

The following day, directors visited Wilber, a small village near Lincoln that has been designated “Czech Capital of the United States” in the US Congress. We toured the local Czech museum, which features an extensive collection of Czech costumes and traditional wear, furniture, dolls, photographs and other memorabilia which render Czech American history alive. We had lunch at a traditional Czech restaurant and feasted on pork and sauerkraut. In the opinion of all directors who participated in this weekend, it was a highly successful experience.