The Casper Rotary Club
This week's meeting will be held:
Monday, January 29th, 2018
at the Parkway Plaza Hotel and Convention Center
123 W. E Street
Casper, WY 82601
Greeters:
Angela Emery
Mike Lougee
Inspiration: Jim Grenfell
Program: Club CPAs - New Tax Law Update
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Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
01/22/2018
President Richard Schwahn called the meeting to order promptly at 12:26, with the ring of the
bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Kimberly Mazza
Greeters:
Tim Havasi and Kendra Ziler were our greeters today and Kendra introduced the members who
brought guests:
- Maribeth Plocek introduced Robert and Monika Ratliff;
- Bret Ladenburger introduced his wife Courtney Ladenburger;
- Jim Anderson introduced some of our Wyoming Legislators, Jerry Obermueller, Bunky Loucks, and Chuck Gray;
- Liz Becher introduced Vickery Hall (WY Community Foundation);
- Martha Rakestraw introduced our parents of the Student of the Month, Jim and Denise Hasskamp;
- Bill Thompson introduced Lacy Meade (Jonah Bank);
- Charles Schoenwolf introduced Eric Sheppard (Computer Professionals Unlimited);
Song:
Gary Pehrson led us in singing “God Bless America”
Tassma Powers sponsored by Susie McMurry was inducted into the club today.
Family of Rotary:
Nothing to report this week.
Rotarians of the Week:
Tim Monroe nominated Jason DeWitt for cleaning the sidewalks of some of the older generation
in their neighborhood this past weekend with all of the snow we received.
Student of the Month:
Martha Rakestraw introduced our Student from KWHS Hunter Hasskamp. Hunter is an impressive
young man with a great future ahead of him. He is undecided on where he will go to college but
after hearing our program from UW he will probably be leaning that direction.
Announcements:
No announcements today.
Program (University of Wyoming):
P.E. Dick Jay introduced our speakers, Greg Brown, Chip Kobulnicky, and Callie Moon. Greg and Chip
are both professors at UW and Callie is a Graduate Student working on her Master’s in Botany. They
are here today to speak to us about the UW Science Initiative. The initiative includes a new building
facility to redefine the way classes are taught and how research is done in the sciences at UW. The
goals are to do what is best for the students, both Grad and undergrad students and to develop human
capital by recruiting and retaining Wyoming’s best students. This initiative will also have a long term
impact on how our Wyoming teachers will teach our Wyoming children in the classroom. There is also
an impact on economic development for the State as this should keep our Wyoming youth in Wyoming
to develop new businesses and improve Wyoming for everyone. The new building is just a tool to run
the new programs they are developing, some of which are already underway. The ones that they have
started are already making huge differences. The spaces in the building will be open modern research
labs, and study areas for larger amounts of students that are studying different disciplines of Science
so that cross over research can occur to develop new ideas. This is the cutting edge of research and
teaching in the nation and UW will be in the top tier of Universities that offer this. Since the initiative
started they have already seen great things including this year they obtained a $20 million grant for
the University. Chip Kobulnicky then spoke with us about more of the equipment and laboratories that
will be possible with this initiative. With all of these programs coming together they will be able to
tackle problems with the efficiency of all of the science disciplines together and there will be huge leaps
in the technology and problem solving. This will help attract the very best students to UW. He showed
us some great equipment that will be available to all of the students to learn better and faster. Students
from the very first day of class even their freshman year are able to participate in research. There is
a lot of research already going on and that helps attract the best students from the region and the
country. Callie then spoke to us about the next generation interactive teaching called Active Learning.
Chip has been using this method for the past five years and it is making a huge difference for the
students as well as the teachers. Callie gave us a demonstration of how it could happen in a big classroom
full of students, with sound systems and white boards. She showed that it is a big help to have teaching
assistants around the room to help with the teaching. Working together interactively and collaborating
with team work helps the students learn better and retain the information longer. The Goal for UW is to
be the first University to teach all of the foundational science classes in this collaborative environment
with the active learning. The classes that they are already teaching have already made a huge difference
for the students in attendance, enjoyment of the classes and grades.
President Richard Schwahn concluded the meeting at 1:25; letting us know that next week we are
back at the Parkway and we will be hearing from our Club CPA’s about the new Job and Tax Bill and
what those changes mean.