This Friday we will meet at the YMCA and it will be a hybrid meeting. We will discuss planning for the 2022-2023 year based on last week's May Board and Annual Planning meeting. An agenda for the meeting will follow tomorrow. Duties will be: Invocation - Ross Peterson, Fellowship - David Lewis, and Greeter - Stacey Johnson.
Following our meeting we will reconvene on Rice Lake Road to do our first Highway Clean up of the year. It is a good time to do it as the grass is not too long yet and a sunny and 69 degree day is forecast. Hugo will lead the charge.
It is sad when we lose a long time member of our Club. Karl Norman passed away on Monday. He was a 47 year member of Skyline Rotary Club. I spoke with a number of people to gather this remembrance; Curt Teberg, Earl, and Karl Everett. All who spoke of Karl spoke of his generosity. He individually funded the construction of the Sumala Medical Clinic working with Mano a Mano in Bolivia. In tomorrow's email I will include pictures and a tribute to Karl from Dr. Jose Velasquez. Karl would come back from Arizona just to run our holiday auctions. He was a gifted auctioneer who wore a cowboy hat and always kept us laughing as he raised money for our holiday families. For many of us we were surprised and pleased to have Karl visit us at last summer's Peach Sale. He spent the day talking to Rotarians and friends. Earl often recruited Karl to join him on Foundation Day trips to other Clubs in the District. There are many Paul Harris Fellows in the District as a result of Earl and Karl's efforts.
It was past Skyliner, Curt Teberg, who knew Karl the best. They were business partners who traveled together for 35 years. Curt spoke of Karl's integrity in his business interactions. None of us who knew Karl didn't know that he liked to have some fun too, and he and Curt did some interesting scheming. I will abbreviate the now infamous, "Silver Medallions story". In Karl and Curt's efforts to raise funds for Polio Plus they flew to Souix Falls, SD to have Rotary medallions minted from pure silver. They successfully sold out their first batch at that year's District Conference and so upped the ante and had many more made to be sold at that year's RI Convention in Philadelphia. Things didn't go quite as well at the RI convention, and they came home with lots of medallions. Many years later the medallions disappeared. The good news ending to the story was that their wives forgave them. We will al miss Karl.
Visitation will be at Dougherty Funeral Home, 600 East 2nd Street, from 5:00-7:00 on Tuesday, May 31st. Service will be at St. Mary Star of Sea, 325 East 3rd Street, at 10:00 AM on Wednesday June 1st followed by a celebration of life at the Incline Station, 601 West Superior Street, from 11:00 on.
A big thank you to the work teams last Friday and Saturday. My apologies for not being able to join, but covid finally caught us. I tested negative on Monday and have felt fine throughout. Greg will give us an update on Friday, but he was impressed with the "roof guys" on Friday and the hard workers on Saturday.
Judy said that Earl was at Essentia since last Wednesday with troubles swallowing. Keep Earl in your thoughts until he comes back to us.
Greg and I attended last Sunday's weekly Zoom meeting of the Warsaw Refugee Center organizing committee. The project is moving forward nicely, and nearing the end of the meeting we all learned that a Foundation who had visited the Warsaw area with the intention of helping refugees last week awarded the project a $200,000 grant. This grant along with the other $170,00 already raised will guarantee funding for the first year and part of the second year of the Center's operation. This is a real tribute to the great work that has been done to date by the organizing committee.
May is Rotary Youth Services Month. Our projects at Boulder Lake and VYC will serve youth.
Thought for the Week
"The most truly generous persons are those who give silently without hope of praise or reward."
Dennis Prager
I have scheduled recurring Zoom meetings for this Rotary year.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88055955851?pwd=RUVVN1RkK2duMW5RWlgzTmxRLzhxUT09
We will see you on Friday at the YMCA.
