Kathy Ausvold staffed the registration desk. Buzz Lundeen greeted us. Tim Hunt on the spot gave our invocation. No singing today. And our own Pres. Dan was at the podium.
Just a special note that Buzz shared that brother and our senior member Mr. David Lundeen is struggling with some health issues at present and our thoughts and prayers go out to David at this time.
MEMBERS PRESENT – Please bring a guest at any time we have plenty of room We want to see everyone at the YMCA! Especially in the two weeks ahead when we have guests from Hillcrest and the FFHS with us to share the Holiday Spirit!
ATHLETES OF THE WEEK: Julianna Unseth and Thomas Zwiers were with us from Hillcrest. Julianna representing soccer and softball and Thomas representing football and basketball. Thanks for coming to Rotary!
ROTARY MINUTE: Our own Bob Russell led us with a Rotary Minute - Our Club is still in the discussion phase of hosting an incoming exchange student for this next school year. We need to identify host families as soon as possible.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Anthony Nordan was looking for help with concessions for the Speech Meet in late January; please let him know if this is something you are willing to do. He also offered an additional date, Saturday, December 7, to ring the bell at Walgreens for the Salvation Army. And the small red kettle will be at Rotary for the next two Wednesdays so remember this chance to give. There is also a Gratitude Promotion being offered through Leighton Broadcasting; see Brian with any questions.
BRAGS AND FINES: Quickly --
Randy K. - the passing of Thomas Smith - keep the entire family in mind.
Hal L. - scooter buck
Kathy A. - had our athlete guest at Morning Son - fun to watch them grow up
Wally C. - Can help get messages to Tom’s wife in Alaska and for his son-in-law looking to join Rotary.
John M. - How about that UND hockey team beating those Gophers - Twice!
Buzz - Please keep David in your thoughts and prayers.
PROGRAM: This writer had the opportunity to introduce our program - OK - so our program was originally scheduled to be music groups from M-State - well they are looking to come after the first of the year. So great chance to get new Supt. of Schools Mr. Jeff Drake to Rotary and for the whole Club to get a chance to meet and hear from him. Jeff Drake was born in Michigan, but moved to Minnesota when his dad took a job with the pipeline in Deer River, MN. Jeff went to college at Gustavus in St. Peter and then went to graduate school at UMD and, while attending school, started working for the prison system part-time. Upon graduation he moved out to Washington state for a couple of years but finally made it back to Minnesota and became a school counselor in Hastings. Jeff has served as an administrator in Milaca, Battle Lake, and now Fergus Falls. His wife is a teacher in New York Mills, his daughter is attending Colorado State, and his son is a senior in Battle Lake. That is a lot of directions for one family, but they are making it work!
Mr. Drake has been working hard to learn all about the Fergus Falls area and its school system. He has been having ongoing discussions with our School Board to review and establish the mission, vision, and values for the school district. There are currently a couple of surveys being completed by all kinds of stakeholders and that information will be extremely valuable when making decisions for the future in regard to our students upcoming needs. The Generation Z student (born from 1995 to 2015) is generally seen as having great potential, being technology literate, maybe being a little less focused, wanting to interact with current issues, needing to be very interactive, and having unlimited information at the touch of a device.
Knowledge these days is doubling at a tremendous rate and this rate will only continue to speed up. What is the portrait of a student that we want to graduate from Fergus Falls in the next several years and if we determine that - how do we create a school system that has the best chance of teaching all of the skills needed by that new graduate. Changes will have to include technology, differenciated instruction, higher order teaching skills, and a quest for inquiry. The use of virtual reality in our schools could become the norm over the course of the next several years. How do we prepare for all of these changes and possibilities?
We also have the wonderful problem of having increasing enrollments coming through the grade levels in our school district. Managing that growth over the course of the next few years will be a tremendous challenge, but a great problem to have before us. The school district has recently purchased the Target building and named that facility Lincoln School. The first phase will be to get that school ready for early childhood programming, in cooperation with leasing space to Children’s Corner. The possibility exists to add additional programming to that school in the years to come.
We are extremely lucky to have recruited Mr. Jeff Drake as our new Supt. of Schools and he is very interested in gathering input from the community. So please let him know if you have any questions or ideas that can help make our schools the absolute best they can be for the children of Fergus Falls.
Hey once again, whatever I missed in this summary, I guess you just should of been there! Have a great week, and see ya on Wednesday!
Yours in Rotary,
Dean Monke
