Steve Leitte greeted, Ryan Welle invoked and Ken Harty presided. There were guests: Cody’s nephew Bennett who has been here before as well as at the community garden, Menghui Yan with Steve and of course Sara, our exchange student. There were no online attendees.
Dean Monke introduced and had four students from Hillcrest share their information. Mackinie Bellway from Fergus Falls is girls varsity soccer captain and will be attending NDSCS in nursing, Dakota Campbell also in girls soccer with plans on attending UND for criminal justice-pre-law, Mario Salazar from Mexico will attend a school in the states and Pedro Hilton will return to Brazil for schooling next year. Pedro and Mario both are on the soccer team heading for a meet at St Cloud Cathedral for section finals.
There were announcements: Rotarians are asked to write custom Santa letters to Amythyst. Brian said to invite Sara out, she wants to experience the area. Elmer and Andy books will have been delivered and read by the time you read this. Roses - sell and let Bob know your progress. November 12th is the date. Steve Leitte said next week he and Cody will be mowing the community garden.
Brags: Katie reported on a trip to Israel. Two weeks and a good time. People are grateful to see every tourist. She encourages everyone to go. Mark B. bragged about his son Bo heading into architecture and serving as president of the U's affiliate of Habitat. Kathy A and Steve are heading to Australia with a loop around New Zealand for a three week trip. Mary bragged about Sara in dance and Steve A. bragged about Sara’s presentation at Sunrise Rotary yesterday, coming to us tomorrow. Cody is a youth hockey coach and announced a community game scheduled for last Friday.
Kathy introduced Scott Brantner, the new Executive Director of the OTCHS. Scott started with an enthusiastic report of the society. They have 215,911 articles from the historic printed media, 54,163 photos and 3,192 old and rare books pertaining the area. They survive on donations and grants so keep them in mind for donations.
He introduced his program, “The Sixty Year War for the Great Lakes” and how it affected Otter Tail County. He said historians piece together information to present a case and he did. The indigenous population was the Great Lakes Unified Body made up of Anishinaabe and Iroquois.
The Great Lakes are the largest freshwater system in the world, it’s about the size of Europe. The boundaries are the Mississippi to the west, the Ohio to the south and the St Lawrence to the east. When this part of the country was settled, the lakes and rivers were the mode of transportation, so water was important. The French/Creole trappers made their way into the area with negotiation and had a good relationship with the locals. When Britain and France started their Seven Year War, a/k/a the French Indian War, the major groups were caught in between. While the French had been friendly, the British came in as haughty and missed some opportunities. The Seven Year War was fought in four theaters with the French Indian one affecting our area. The British ultimately won by bonding with the Iroquois.
The Anishnaabe Confederation staged a revolt under Pontiac and Neolin. They were able to present to their population that they had been given what had been considered as the inheritance of land. They were able to adopt and learn the ways of war from their enemies and soon controlled eight forts and had cut supply lines. Pontiac won and Sovereign Indian Territory was granted in 1768. During the American Revolution, settlers from New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia began to settle both sides of the Ohio river which led to Shawnee uprising and general unrest.
We started running out of time but the upshot for Otter Tail County was that the Ojibwe people settled here because of the water after being forced out of the areas further east so when the settlers moved in it continued the unrest.
