Northwind October 8, 2015

Call to order:  President Sharon called the meeting to order and led us in the flag salute.

Invocation Rick Staeb provided the invocation.

Visiting Rotarians:  Bill Kirby joins us again from AZ (?)

Guests of Rotarians: Greg Thulin visited today as a guest of Ken Richardson.  We are hopeful that our new time and location will work better for him and that he can rejoin us as a member again.

Returning Rotarians: Tim and Pati from the Monday night Seahawks game ( really? That counts?).

Birthdays:  Jim Sands and Rocky Richardson.

Anniversaries:  Club anniversary- Founded October 1973 - 42 years ago.  This is good for the month of October.

Announcements; Sharon was happy to announce the WCN RC was first in the district for attendance in the month of August with 89.41%. We are small but committed!

Fund raising committee continues to meet Monday mornings at 7:00 at Arles's and invites everyone to join them. The 2016 Duck Derby will be held in conjunction with the Ferndale Days Street Fair and the tickets will be sold for $20 each.  To be continued.   

Foundation dinner: 11/5/15 at 5:30, Northwood Hall.  Please RSVP to the clubrunner email sent by Ken or send him an email directly; cost is $35 and we need a head count.  We need nominations for Paul Harris awards. Anyone in the community that exemplifies "Service above Self" in their contribution to the community is a good candidate. We have 17 + awards to use for recognition.

Jake Locker will be our program on 11/12 and if you want to bring friends and family please tell Bill Grace in advance so he can let the lunch folks know to make extra food.

RYLA candidates; we need to submit applications in the next few weeks. If you want to encourage children or grandchildren, nieces, nephews…it is a great program.

Happy Bucks:   Bill Grace was happy about our attendance stats, the annual Monroe swap meet coming up this weekend (car show involved here) and seeing Greg Thulin in our midst. Rocky was happy about the Yankees and Astros and seeing Greg again. Rollo was happy to see Greg .Laurie was happy for the BTC scholarship breakfast this morning and meeting the WCN RC. Ken R was happy that Greg Thulin joined us today and Greg Thulin was happy to be here!  He brought us up to speed on his sons accomplishments- eldest is in second year of college at Montana State(?) and just was granted a year of study abroad in Sweden (this is son who attended RYLA a few years back). Youngest son is in second year at Squalicum HS and on the varsity tennis team. Jim Blaney is happy he has his walking regimen up to 1 mile. Tim was happy to see Greg Thulin, to attend the BTC breakfast and meet our scholar, the Seahawks game Monday night and his mother's recovery from a partial hip replacement after a fall in the night that eventually required a 911 call and transport by ambulance to the hospital. He also displayed his Nelson Mandela post card exhibit. Pati is happy about our great attendance stats and to see the rain again. Greg Iwasaki was happy to see Greg Thulin and doubling down on the name. Jill was happy to be here for lunch and to actually have some social time with Greg (and us) and had apology bucks for leaving early (she will be happier next week)  Linda Quinn is happy FSD is recruiting Pati V to work and could impact her weekly attendance, if she is close by in Ferndale. Stan and Margaret are happy that Bill Grace sent them a copy of the Northwind last week. Stan does not use the clubrunner access on the internet so he has not seen a NW for many months. Dale Holt  was happy to see Greg Thulin and to announce that he will no longer be with ICU but will be in Bellingham (Barkley) at the 1^st Federal Bank, Rick Staeb was happy for his role in the attendance reporting..mentioned some computer glitch..so not positive the count is accurate.  We are confident it is accurate!

Fine Master:  Rocky Richardson and Rollo Van Slyke tag teamed as fine master; they collected IOU's and Mary Lu's from Pati, Marlene, Jim Sands (added to his since he was not in attendance). Marlene was fined as last one in the door and anyone who did not greet Greg Thulin was fined, Marlene was fined again (is there a pattern here?) for not knowing the significance of October 9^th (Mary Lu Richardson's birthday) but the cousins should pay this one. Anyone who had not RSVP'd to the Foundation dinner, or not wearing their Rotary pin, or did not participate in the cleaning and sorting of ducks, or had already purchased Halloween candy and\or sampled their Halloween candy was fined. Several sports related fines; Oakland Raiders "ball tipping" rule, Chicago Cubs in playoffs, Seahawks playing Bengals in Cincinnati and maybe others…I lost track.  Rollo could not answer what the picture on the Farmers Insurance calendar was this month and a question about being "this close" to ending polio in the Rotarian magazine featuring Jackie Chan,  generated more fines. Fines were fast moving (too fast for this note taker) and fun.

 Banners:    The banners today represented the 42^nd anniversary of the club with pictures of the 29 charter members. Jake Smith is the only remaining charter member and had one banner displayed that he brought back to the club from a visit to a Tahoe Nevada club.

Program:   Phil Dyer is an amateur historian and his area of focus is the Battle of Big Horn which happened 140 years ago on 6/25 (Phil's birth date). He gave an interesting and informative narrative of how this battle transpired. There are over 3000 books written about Custer and the battle; most of them incorrect. He recommended two books that are reliably accurate; Men with Custer: Biographies of the 7^th Cavalry edited by R. Nichols and D. Bird and the other one is ' A Terrible Glory' by James Donovan.  After a range fire in 1982 cleared the battle field many  archeologists and researchers have carefully cataloged the artifacts and reconstructed the battle. Walking on the battlefield is prohibited to preserve the remaining artifacts. There are a number of monuments to the fallen soldiers and Indians and there is an annual remembrance ceremony on 6/25. A basic misunderstanding is that Custer was  there to fight with the Indians. The military came to move 10,000 Sioux, Cheyenne and Crow Indians to a reservation and were unprepared for a fight.  There were 2,000 Indian warriors to the 212 members of Custer's cavalry and they were spread out over a large battlefield; 5 miles wide by 10-12 miles long. The military thought they were rounding up peaceful Indians that needed assistance in moving. They were surprised by the attack (sabers had been boxed up) and did not expect a fight. Being spread out and seriously outnumbered, they did not have a chance at survival, given the Indians were intent upon killing them all. Crazy Horse said "it is a great day to die". There are many mysteries that remain today and several groups continue the research (28 soldiers from Company E cannot be found..they disappeared). Custer, two brothers and a nephew all died on "Last Stand Hill" so named because they had nowhere to go; escape routes were cut off and the other soldiers were too far away to help (on another hill).

Custer was actually a friend of the Indians and had just been to WA DC to testify before congress about the corruption in the BIA..headed by Ulysses S. Grant's cousin, who was skimming off funds intended for the Indians. The Indians were leaving the reservations in search of food. Custer was not successful in getting aid for the Indians and sent back to round them up. The graft and corruption in the BIA went unchecked (some would say for 140 years).

Phil brought artifacts with him as well. An Indian tomahawk from that era (amazing) and an antique painting of the battle field. Some of the soldiers did survive and of course thousands of Indians survived so the history is being re-written to reflect what is a more accurate depiction of the events of that day.

There is also a local connection - a bit convoluted and I may not have it right. Tom Custer (brother to George Armstrong) had a love child named Tommy Custer who married a woman who somehow ended up in Blaine WA and she died in 1915 and is buried in Enterprise Cemetery..name is Rebecca Cairns, I think.  Phil cleaned up her grave and maintains it so we should be able to find it, if interested.

Phil makes annual trips to the battlefield to continue his research and I bet has read all 3000 books. He is clearly passionate about this subject and gave a fascinating program.

 

Drawing:  Jill Iwasaki won a bouquet of flowers, and Greg Iwasaki won the raffle, picking the ace of spades; pot was at $2,509 or 1,254.50 for 50%. We now start over with a pot of $102 or $51 for 50%.