Mitzi Moe staffed the front desk, Stan Carignan greeted us, John MacFarlane provided us with an exceptional prayer, and Mary Petit led us in some great signing. Our capable leader, Steve Leitte, led our meeting.
VISITING ROTARIANS: Amy Hochgraber from Detroit Lakes was with us. As the Director of Business and Industry for M|State, she holds the classification of Customized Training.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Bob Russell and Pepe Ramos are off to the District Conference in Thunder Bay (and the pictures flowed on Facebook by Saturday). Today, May 2nd will feature Pepe as our chef and presenting us with a genuine Mexican Fiesta, complete with his home-made Pinata. This will be a Fund Raiser for Pepe to help him get to a summer camp, so lets all join in with a bit of extra cash!
Steve announced that all things are ready for our club to plant trees at the sight of the North Water Tower on Monday, May 7th at 3 PM. Volunteer tree planters are requested. “Josh the Otter” books will be distributed on Wed., May 16th after our noon meeting, so more volunteers will be needed for presenting them…all in the interest of expanding Literacy in our community. Dave Johnson assured us that he would be asking for volunteers for our Road Clean-up…probably a nice clear, warm day.
BRAGS AND FINES: Keith bragged on his mom Elaine, who just turned 89. He also expanded on how great it is to be hosting Pepe…and how each Rotarian would really benefit from being with him for a meal, a short trip, or to the lakes. Pepe will be with us until the end of July. As you all know, Ryan Welle was his first host. Pres. Steve also bragged on Pepe. Randy bragged on Katie who filled in by introducing his program last week and for his trip to D.C. Visiting Rotarian Amy bragged just for being with us.
PROGRAM: Randy Kempfer introduced our own Anna Wasescha, CEO of West Central Initiative Fund and a new member of our club, to give us her second classification talk. Her first was a few years ago when she was the Provost at M State. Anna and her husband Richard Kagan (a Sunrise Rotarian) lives in their Star Lake home. Their daughter, Ariel, is recently engaged. Anna spent a good portion of her youth in St. Louis where she attended Washing College for 2-years, but graduated and got all her degrees at the U of MN.
After her first four years in FF she became the President of Middlesex Community College in Middletown, CT. Now that she is back in FF she sees her new job at WIF as one of performing Regional planning of economic development where child care, broadband access to all homes and businesses as well as education are some of the big issues of the day. With the planning of development they find that it feeds right in to their giving strategy. WIF provides funding through Grants and through Gap Loans. There are six regional, rural locations that were established in 1986 by the McKnight Foundation (think 3M). The FF region has 11 board members, with Mark Helland of FF currently serving…probably in the position most recently held by our own John MacFarlane.
Because WIF serves 9 counties and the headquarters are in the Twin Cities, Anna is getting a lot of behind the wheel time. But Anna never rests. She devours Audio Books as she drives. At the office they get every newspaper in the 9 counties they serve…and they get read because this is one way they all get to know what is happening in the area. Anna and her husband also read, every day, the New York Times and The Washington Post in order to keep up with the world.
Anna wished that Bob Russell were in attendance because out of the May Rotarian she referenced the lead article about changing your mind. In winding down her talk, she gave us some good advice: Get out of the house; teaching and studying liberal arts is important for living life; and for former Rotarian Carrie Brimhall to succeed as the President at M State we will need to give her all the help and support that we can.
Thanks to Anna for a classification talk that informed us and kept us on our toes.
