The 2009-2010 president of the VFDA is C. Keister Whitt, III, CFSP, a funeral director at Wrenn-Yeatts Funeral Home in Danville.  Whitt said he chose the funeral service industry not by some divine intervention or lifelong dream, but by watching funeral professionals go about their work on a day to day basis.  He saw how funeral professionals always help in a time of need and he wanted to make a difference for a hurting family.  Whitt began his work in the funeral industry when he went to work part-time for Wrenn-Yeatts Funeral Home in 1980.   “In 1981, I was given the opportunity to work for Wrenn-Yeatts Funeral Home full–time during the summer, it was then that I realized I wanted a career in the funeral service industry”, Whitt said.  After the summer, he moved to Richmond, where he worked for A.W. Bennett Funeral Home while attending school and serving his apprenticeship.  Whitt completed the Associated Program in Funeral Service at John Tyler Community College in 1983.  Whitt returned to Wrenn-Yeatts Funeral Home in 1983 and became an owner in 1994.  Whitt’s goals for the next year are to grow the membership by defining the real value in membership and selling those values to the funeral professionals in the state and to offer learning opportunities for the association members that they can put to work in their funeral homes immediately.  Whitt stated that he tries to emulate what he has learned over the years from Ryland Bennett, Bill Bradley, Charlie Morehead, Clifton Rowland, Bobby Riddle, Sam Harrison, and many friends that he has made in the VFDA.  “I only hope I can give back to the funeral profession as much as I have taken away from it.”, he said.  The VFDA will be the voice of funeral service in Virginia and we are going to embrace technology and look at ways it can work for us!