Holly checked us in, Katie led and Mary read the Prayer of St. Francis. We did the Pledge and Four Way Test. Keith O. was online, and we had Candi live, flanked by Lisa and Deb. It was announced there will also be no reading of Josh the Otter, but Cody will be delivering the books to the schools for the teachers to hand out. Next Thursday will be the ground-breaking for the Humane Society. Katie gave us a vest update; we haven’t received them yet and it appears that they are part of the tariff hold-up.
Mark June 4th on your calendar; our social will be at Lisa McFarlane’s (1506 Viking Ct) to celebrate Candi’s time here. Deb and Brian will be co-hosts with an Argentinian feed planned. The week after will be Candi’s farewell speech. I did hear her presentation to Sunrise Rotary and she did a great job.
For brags, Deb said that she and Candi have been going classroom to classroom promoting the exchange program and there seems to be interest. Mark paid up for not being able to attend in person. Lisa mentioned Candi’s talk at morning Rotary and her daughter’s first prize. Mary announced a 42nd anniversary and plugged an upcoming series for Dance the first week in June. Buzz showed off a creased forehead, Wally talked about his granddaughters’ activities and Holly bragged about her son’s speech at Underwood’s graduation.
Jamie Larson introduced our own Steve Austvold who reported he had talked to Rotary in high school so this wasn’t his maiden flight. He joined the Austvold household in February ’52, his parents were Palmer and Adeline. Palmer was a piano tuner (his card is in the instrument we have) and Adeline taught piano. Buzz got a shout-out for being an early neighbor and Jamie was noted as the purchaser of the family home. Keep it in the Rotary family, I guess. He attended Adams and Madison schools and was a day short of finishing a school year when the school burned. He finished the last two years doing the early shift at Roosevelt and went on to FFCC. He did part-time work at Woolworth (across from Lundeen’s) during high school and time at the community college. He confessed to a DUI at 19 and said that it was a wake up that gradually moved him to dedicate his life to Christ. In the meantime he had a Plymouth Road Runner, 1968 model with a 383 Magnum. (That’s for the car enthusiasts.)
During his college years at Moorhead State a friend pulled him from his original studies to explore the course he has followed since. He did a series of Bible studies starting at Cooperstown Bible Camp then worked in a youth program at a Baptist church in Moorhead which led to a youth ministry in Wisconsin. He got bit by the travel bug on a tour with the group to Europe. Steve continued his education with a Master of Divinity degree in South Carolina and from ’83 to ’92 pastoring in Minnesota and Wisconsin. He completed his Doctor of Ministry in 1991. In 1992 he was in Romania after the government fell and helped bring Christianity to the country. He was called home when his mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer and helped in her last days. He was in Kursk Russia in 2000 where he met some missionaries who in turn introduced him to Kathy. They married in 2001. He spent time in one of the “stans” until 2006 and is now at Swan Lake.
Steve has been a mission mobilizer since 2008, leading ten teams to Lake Charles, Louisiana and one to Ft Myers, Florida after hurricanes. Both he and Kathy are million-mile members with Delta, they’ve enjoyed cruises since 2004 and are planning on an anniversary cruise in November ’26 for their 25th, around Australia and New Zealand.
Good program, it’s always good to get to know the background of our members.