Wally Cole offered our invocation. President Ryan announced that Holly Wilson had resigned from the Club. Deb Maertens told us that Exchange Student Laly Parent will be arriving in Fergus Falls on August 25th. There was a Rotary Minute Plus quiz administered based on the last few pages of the August Rotary magazine, with two of three true/false questions answered correctly. Then those at the table that got their question wrong were let off the hook of having to pay anything because they answered their question incorrectly when Keith Olson told us that RYLA stands for Rotary Youth Leadership Awards.
Keith also said that the peach fundraiser was a pretty smashing success, made possible by an incredible number of volunteers. In terms of peach sales, Buzz Lundeen was again our heavy hitter, but mention was also made of Hal Leland and his daughter Lolly. Wally and Steve Austvold were complimented for their work selling peaches at the Farmers Market, with Steve Austvold telling us that Wally's successful efforts to sell one peach at a time was modeled after Wally selling encyclopedias in times past, but I doubt one volume at a time. Some 40 to 60 lugs went un-sold but they were distributed to senior living units and first responders; the give-away was worthwhile albeit the in-kind donations will reduce our cash proceeds by about $3,000. Steve's thumbs-up to Wally started our brags and fines, with Dave Johnson following by commenting on the quality of the peaches and on Steve Leitte being at the truck every day distributing them. Wally then told us he and Marci had canned 18 quarts of peaches and about the same number of cucumbers - cans that is. Jamie Larson also thanked everyone for their contributions to our peach fundraiser and Steve Austvold bragged about Kathy's wonderful peach pie. Keith then bragged about Brian Tjaden who was instrumental in closing the deal on the sale of Elaine's house, which turned out to be a good reason to celebrate her life as well. Ryan Welle than concluded the brags and fines by stating that his house was going to achieve "empty nester" status on what would now be this past Saturday.
Deb introduced the students who attended RYLA this year, Zoe Graham and Brook Zierden. Zoe is the daughter of Kamilla and Patrick while Brook is the daughter of Tanya and Dan; Brook's family hosted Candi this past year. Zoe and Brook will be seniors this coming year. Zoe is on the left.
They both said they were terrified about going to RYLA but that it turned out to be an amazing week. They are organized into families and clubs. By the end of the week-long adventure, they had met about 75% of all the attendees. The main focus during the camp is the seven habits for success: 1) be productive; 2) begin with the end in mind; 3) put first things first; 4) think win-win; 5) seek first to understand, then to be understood; 6) synergize; and 7) sharpen the straw -- or be open and out there with everyone. Each family had to perform a skit on the last night of RYLA. Brook told us her family would all raise their hands each time the word "synergize" was used. There was a party at the end. One of their assignments was to give warm fuzzies to others attending by writing out compliments on little cards that were then presented to their subject. The facilitators also wrote them, and they could be either anonymous, or the author could identify him/herself. Brook said her biggest surprise was that she and Zoe were not together at all, while Zoe said she was surprised that she was not as nervous as she thought she would be. Zoe said she is not generally comfortable meeting new people (it was stated that teenagers don't like the idea of going somewhere where they don't know someone, but that is probably true of a lot of us) and that her takeaway from the experience was that she was capable of handling such situations. Brook described her takeaway as realizing that she did not necessarily think the same way as others and that she needed to listen to adapt to the situation. RYLA was better and involved a lot more active learning than both expected; they were taught a lesson and then they would do an activity and soon realized they were using the lesson in the activity they were given. Even the speeches were engaging!
As for future plans, Brook intends to attend UND and compete in track with the intent to study nutrition; she also expects to be involved in Young Life in Grand Forks like she is here. Zoe will be going to school somewhere in Minnesota and will pursue an education in the area of women's health.