Our invocations the past two weeks have been offered by Kathy A. and Wally C. on Feb. 28 and March 6 respectively. Holly Wilson was introduced as a guest on the 28th and inducted into membership on the 6th, with President Zach doing the honors and sponsor Kathy A. by his side.
We had no Student Guests on Feb. 28th, but on March 6th High School seniors William Nuss, Lance Johnson and Aislling Cox were with us (left to right in the picture below). Lance is the son of Nathan and Valerie and involved in football and tennis and part of the robotics team, with intentions of attending UND next year to study in the field of aerospace. William is the son of Jerry and Julie, is in cross-country and tennis and will attend NDSU next year to study civil engineering. Aisling is the daughter of John and Rachel, a National Honor Society student and involved in orchestra, track and choir; she is still looking at different schools but wants to study economics and public policy and later attend law school.
At our meeting on the 28th, Brian T. announced that the club brought in about $2,000 from the Wedgwood performances. It was also noted there is a Board meeting after our meeting tomorrow, March 13th. On the 6th, Keith O. indicated his team is in charge of May and looking for program suggestions; Katie J. asked for input from club members on whether continuing with teams being responsible for monthly set-up and take-down, programs, etc., should be repeated in our next Rotary year or if anyone had other thoughts.
For the Rotary Minute Quiz on the 28th, with the three tables answering their questions incorrectly, but the third table was given a re-do and managed to answer the fourth question correctly. On the 6th, two of three questions were answered correctly.
For brags and fines the past two weeks, Hal L. contributed to thank the originator of the Wedgwood performance as a Rotary club fundraiser, not mentioning Brian T. by name but everyone knowing who was being talked about. Katie J. contributed for her team members not being present to set-up for the meeting on the 6th and her having to leave early so not being able to help with take-down. Wally C. paid for grandchildren participating in the high school choir and middle school orchestra concerts and for being able to vote. Keith O. was proud of Lance Johnson who he has known since Lance was a toddler. Steve L. also rose to brag about a grandchild of his participating in one of the concerts. Deb M. told us about babysitting her grandchildren all of the prior week and taking a friend to her old club in Fargo the prior day and learning of the Recital for a Cause that the Rotary Clubs in Fargo and Moorhead are sponsoring as part of the District Conference activities on Thursday evening, April 11th.
On a sad note, Keith O. commented on the death of Rick Odden on March 4th, survived by mother-in-law Florence Johnson, wife Becky and daughters Abby and Laura.
Mary Matteson was our program on the 28th, telling us about her work as Director of our public schools' community education offerings. She was introduced by Cody Odland, who got to know Mary by agreeing to chaperone students in fourth through twelfth grades (including his nephew) at Andes Tower Hills on Friday evenings. Mary has three children, the oldest a senior corporate accountant in Sioux Falls; the middle one in retail management in Missoula, Montana after having spent 13 years in Reno, Nevada; and the youngest one in the Twin Cities providing information technology services to Medtronics and Anheuser-Busch and parent of two wonderful children. Mary told us the community education movement started in 1930 in Michigan, while in Minnesota our then governor hosted a state-wide summit on it in 1969, with Minnesota becoming the fourth state to pass community education legislation in 1971. Community education classes were started in Fergus Falls in 1979. Mary believes that we can accomplish anything we put our minds to and will help anyone in that effort. The breadth of the programs offered through Community Education that Mary told us about and for which she provided written materials is a testament to her not only believing her words but acting upon them. She closed by referencing her youngest child's statement that people do business with people they trust and paraphrased from the book Tuesdays with Morrie, stating that we are devoted to loving others and the community around us and to doing something that gives us purpose.
Our program on the 6th was Kathy A., sharing a PowerPoint and talking about her and husband Steve's (who was also in attendance offering technical support) recent trip to India. It was a very interesting presentation for those of you who were unable to attend.