Rotary Rounds March 15, 2017
Mary Pettit handled the front desk duties and Dave Johnson greeted us. President Katie called the meeting to order and we recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the Rotary 4-Way Test.
Mary Pettit handled the front desk duties and Dave Johnson greeted us. President Katie called the meeting to order and we recited the Pledge of Allegiance and the Rotary 4-Way Test.
Katie introduced her guest, Mitzi Moe, the new Publisher with the Fergus Falls Journal. Mitzi has been in the paper business since 1982 and was previously a Rotarian with the Wahpeton Rotary Club.
Dean Monke helped us welcome two Hillcrest students who will be with us for one more week as well. The first student introduced was Nate Larson, the son of Paul and Bee Larson. Nate is a senior and has not yet determined where he’ll be going for school next year but he is thinking about pursuing Pre-medicine. Tara Ferenczy is our other student guest for this and our next meeting. Tara is the daughter of Kristi and Earl and she’s a senior. Tara is currently looking at schools for next year and one potential option is to study Nursing at Liberty University.
We also had Athletes of the Week representing Hillcrest and they were introduced by Keith Olson. Being recognized were Tommy Thompson and Abby Christenson. Tommy is the son of Cary and Kathy and he’s a senior involved in soccer, football, basketball and track. He’s not yet chosen a school for next year but he’s considering the Pre-engineering program at MState. Abby is also a senior and her parents are David and Eunice. Abby participates in volleyball and basketball and is considering Concordia or MState where she’d like to learn about video editing and film production.
We also had some announcements from President Katie. The first was around the delivery of “Josh the Otter” books at kindergarten classes in Fergus Falls. It looks like April 12th will be the delivery date and it will also include the opportunity to read for the students. More to come on this great opportunity! We were also given the opportunity, as in years past, to donate to the Rotary International Rose Parade Float; the hat was passed and some dollars will be contributed to that. President Katie also shared some quotes from Albert Einstein in honor of his
Birthday which was on March 14th. We then were challenged by Bob Russell and another good Rotary Minute Quiz.
We also had some brags from club members. Lori Larson put a great plug in for the student guests who were thinking about MState. She also talked about a great family trip to Mexico. John MacFarlane asked if we knew what famous person died on this date. I’m pretty certain it was one of the students who answered first with, Julius Caesar. We also learned that it happened in the year 44 B.C. which was just a few years before Keith Olson, the last of our members to put some money in the pot, was born. That isn’t exactly true but Keith was talking about the wonderful opportunity he’d had to care for a couple of his grandchildren and that he had some pain resulting from the visit.
Our guest speaker for the day was Becky Gerhardson, the Assistant General Manager representing Caribou Coffee and Einstein Bagels. Following an introduction from Ryan Welle, Becky told us about some of the exciting happenings at the business that has been open for just under three months. As a promotion, they started the store off with the first fifty customers getting free coffee and bagels for an entire year. That had some hearty souls camped out in front of the store at 3:00 a.m. on a cold December night. Becky also told us about the great variety of bagels and coffees, and that there are some great food options at the store. And if you’ve got a dog, they’ll even have something for him/her if you use the drive thru. After some questions, we were then treated to some great bagel samples. Thank you to Becky and Caribou Coffee/Einstein Bagels!
In Rotary,
Pete Wasberg