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Buzz Lundeen was our greeter and Wally Cole gave our invocation. Our speaker introduced his mother, Patty Schultz, as a visitor to our club, and there was also a visiting Rotarian, Claire, a member of the Eco Club in the Twin Cities and looking to join a club in our area. Ryan Welle reminded anyone interested to sign up to purchase a Rotary shirt. This writer reported that we can again sell roses this year, but the price has gone up significantly. We are looking at $11.59 a dozen for all red or $12.59 a dozen for assorted color (half red and half lollipop) or just lollipop, plus sales tax. In 2020, we paid $9.33 a dozen, the first year the company charged us with sales tax Feedback was solicited on whether or not we could have a successful fundraiser if we increase our price from $20 to $25, what type of roses to order, etc. The Board will take into consideration the comments made so if you have any thoughts that were not shared at the meeting, please let them be known to a Board member as soon as possible. For brags and fines, John MacFarlane contributed to recognize our speaker, whom he described as a "fine young man," while this writer referenced serving on the Executive Committee for our Rotary District this year. Ken Harty then bragged about the prior evening's "Best of Otter Tail County" celebration at the VFW at which 124 awards were handed out based on the survey conducted by The Daily Journal. For service clubs, the Underwood Lions came in first while our club was second. Wally Cole introduced Paul Shol as our speaker, and he talked about (and showed us pictures of) his deployment to the Prince Sultan Air Force Base in Saudia Arabia from early April to near the end of July this year. He has been a member of the 148th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard out of Duluth for five years and the deployment involved 300 of the "Bulldogs." He described the weather as "brutally hot," noting the saving grace for him was he was assigned to the night shift; even then, however, the temperature exceeded 100°. Paul said there was always a wind as well, so in the day it felt like you were being hit by a blow drier. Twelve of the 22 fighter jets assigned to Duluth went over and took part in Operation Inherent Resolve and Operation Spartan Shield. The unit made 766 flights which lasted an average of 6.9 hours. There were 79 aircraft intercepts, 32 munitions were dropped (with ISIS caves being some of the targets) and 3400 rounds of 20 mm shells were fired. Eleven pilots had their first combat sorties. The fighters go out in pairs and are accompanied by a tanker to refuel as needed. Paul's job was to do the final 50-point inspection with the pilot so he was hooked up on the comm with him or her. The F-16's that were flown cost $19 million each. Paul stayed in a "soft shelter" with eight guys assigned to a tent. One thing he did describe as "fun" was watching the night sky in the desert. Paul went on to talk about a recent camping excursion of his, but I had to leave and did not get the details. |
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