On July 3, Dan Johnson's first meeting as our new President had a lot going for it, although he announced the regrettable news that Scott DeBrito and Lori Larson had both resigned from the club. Mike Clark reported on the Rotary Golf Open, noting the two Fergus Falls Rotary clubs grossed $9,045 from the event and our share of the funds left over after payment of expenses was $3,115. Greg Darling led off the bragging by noting that he will be in Indianapolis the end of August celebrating the American Legion's 100th anniversary at its national convention, which coincides with the 95th anniversary of the North Dakota Legion Band. Keith Olson contributed for missing three meetings, to congratulate his son-in-law on becoming our president, and for all our members who step up to the plate when they are asked to do something. Dave Peters bragged about his grandson Eli and also reported that he was leaving the next day for Idaho to attend his sister's 80th birthday party. Anthony contributed for missing some meetings and for a first-time event in Minnesota and North Dakota: bell ringing in Battle Lake to celebrate Christmas in July. Finally, Dan Johnson contributed for his opportunity to be our president this coming year, which was a nice segue into his telling us about himself and his goals for 2019-20. Dan grew up in Breckenridge, graduating from high school with Randy Kempfer; he started with Fastenal in 2005, married Melissa in 2013 and ran the Jamestown store for three years before the management position here in Fergus Falls opened up 3½ years ago. Dan and Melissa have three children and he expressed his appreciation for being in Fergus Falls. His two main goals for the year are a net increase in membership, more female members and more members under age 40. He also said we need to put emphasis on getting ready for our centennial anniversary in 2020-2021. There was some comments and concerns expressed about the health of our club after Dan concluded his remarks, including needing more of us to be involved in club meetings and activities and reversing the decline in club membership. All true, but as Keith's wife Kim pointed out to him when he related what happened at our meeting on the 3rd to her, the people who needed to hear what was said probably weren't the ones who were in attendance.
On July 10, Dan, growing more comfortable in his leadership role, called on Wally Cole for our invocation and Keith Olson to lead us in songs. We learned to expect the peaches this year will arrive around August 15 or 16. When it came to brags and fines, this writer led off by paying a fine for not getting last week's Rounds out and to express appreciation for Hal, Keith and our program guests for their vocal contributions when we sang. Anthony reported his newborn son is doing well; Mary expressed her appreciation for the arts in our community which just put on nine performances of Shrek, with 200 children involved; Tim Hunt was happy about the day's program; Wally Cole contributed to acknowledge one of our program participants, Jennifer Johnson; and Dan Johnson reported on celebrating a daughter's first birthday the past Sunday. Kathy Austvold introduced Becky Sonmor, the events coordinator at A Center for the Arts who talked to us about the upcoming summer musical, Oliver, with performances scheduled for July 30 through August 4 (the Sunday matinee will have sign language interpreters for the performance). Becky introduced her sister, Jennifer Johnson, who along with Becky are co-choir directors for the performance; Amy Nordlin, who was the director for Shrek's Cast A and is actively assisting in preparations for Oliver; and Jake Stone, originally from Alexandria and directing the upcoming show. Jake told us the cast numbers 45 and then introduced 12 of the performers, eight girls and three boys, who performed two songs They were followed by two other boys from the cast who performed a duet. After applauding our program and the cast left, we talked about the next day's Duck Derby and Anthony Nordan told us that United Way will be packing backpacks on August 5-9th and will be looking for volunteers.