Announcements: Anthony will lead a team of volunteers on Wednesday, Sep. 25th to clean up the ditch that Noon Rotary adopted. Please meet Anthony at the small strip mall where King Tobacco resides at 3:30.
Rotary Minute: Bob Russell once again stumped us by asking questions pertaining to our District Governor based on his bio that appeared in last week's Rounds. Some of the questions were, which club does he hail from? (Brainerd); which one? ( the older one); what state did he graduate from? (Idaho); and where did he first meet up with his better half? (Germany).
Brags and Fines: Mary Jane Westra was visiting and bragged that her sister Martha is a 100% member of Rotary and is active in helping others. She helps with ditch clean up and picking apples. Martha may be one of the first mentally disabled members of Rotary. Kathy Austvold thanked Dean for stepping up at the last minute to fill in as our speaker last week. Randy apologized for a commercial he appears in – I haven’t seen it but it must have been good! (he said he received a lot of feedback regarding it). Bob paid for not qualifying for the Global Cribbage tournament this year since he only won 5 of 21 games over the weekend -- worse than any odds. David Johnson reported on a bittersweet moment as he was going to watch a spectacular fire purposely set by the DL fire department as a practice drill, burning down his his old homestead.
Our Program was presented by District Governor Rick Bricker. We were his 40th club visit! DG Bricker first mentioned that he really enjoyed the 2019 International Rotary Convention in Hamburg, Germany. One of the highlights was a young speaker from England, Chris Wells. Chris was a Rotaract member and gave a speech on “dogoodery”. You can find the speech on YouTube -- search under “do goodery rotary” Mr. Bricker was quite impressed with this young man and his ability to hold attention and inspire the crowd. Chris was the highlight of the conference, among many highlights.
DG Bricker cited a John Hopkins University study that stated Rotarians annually put in 40 million hours helping communities around the world. The study also concluded that the economic impact of those efforts was $850,000,000! Talking about the work of The Rotary Foundation, Rick indicated India and Nigeria are now polio free, as of September 17th , the day before our club meeting! Rotary is still trying to make headway eliminating polio in Afghanistan. Aid workers were being attacked so now the Taliban are escorting them.
D.G. Bricker enlisted in the Army in 1972. He was assigned to learn micro radio wave repair for the Army, but since the war ended after his first six weeks he never worked in that field. He opted to take a new job instead of sitting at the base to finish out his enlistment. His new job was in crash rescue. Before he logged any hours in that position he was transferred to Germany where he was tasked to refuel helicopters. His roommate at the time asked him if he had anyone back home to write to, since he did not his roommate hooked him up with a good friend who he thought would get along well with Rick. After a few months of writing back and forth Rick and Susan met in Germany and as they say, “the rest is history”.
Rick and Susan moved to Minneapolis after his discharge, where they got into the dry-cleaning business. One very interesting customer was Rogers Nelson, otherwise known as Prince (then a “Symbol” and then back to Prince again); he was very particular about his dry cleaning, even before he was famous. Rick did all the dry cleaning for the movie Purple Rain and when Prince was on tour he would fly all of his clothes back to Minneapolis to have Rick dry-clean them since he did not trust anyone else. Prince was not the only interesting person to walk though his doors, Hubert H. Humphry also visited the establishment. Rick retired after 12 years and tried to reinvigorate a dry cleaner in Grand Marais MN but it was not to be, so he moved to Brainerd MN. He purchased a dry-cleaners in Brainerd, it needed a little TLC but with some elbow grease he was able to make it work for 36 years.
In 1986 Rick was approached by a member of Rotary and asked to attend a meeting. He was intrigued by our motto “Service Above Self,” as he has those same ideals. He helped start an international project, “bikes to Haiti”. There was a $5,000 roadblock getting them shipped to Haiti. With the help of an old army buddy, he got the bikes there and avoided the shipping cost. At that point he was “all in” with Rotary. He served on the District Grants Committee for many years; Rick said there is a great feeling when you get to hand out money for worthy causes. While on the Grant committees he worked on a grant to build a chicken coop in Haiti. This coop housed 1000 chickens. The Haitians were so excited about the chickens that the took very good care of the chicks, only 14 out of 1000 chicks died, which is a very high success rate for chickens. Another project was to help build a church in Haiti, which Rick was able to physically help and attend the first service. Rick said it was packed and was a very moving experience.
Rick, along with 24 other Brainerd Rotarians worked through a five to ten year vision plan for their club. The goals they ultimately achieved included achieving 95% of all of their identified goals and having a District Governor from the Brainerd club within 10 years -- he is that District Governor.
Rick grew up in a dysfunctional family so some of his focus as DG is child abuse awareness. Another focus is the Rotary Resource for Human Trafficking; so far this organization is funded for 2 ½ years.
District Governor Bricker gave us a little insight to the upcoming District Conference in Brainerd. It is going to be at Maddens Resort. PETS (presidential elect training) will be held at Maddens Resort for efficiency. There will be two golf events and trap shooting, along with many other activities. The theme is “The Roaring 20’s” so bring your costumes. There is a costume shop in Brainerd where you can rent a costume and100% of the proceeds will go to non- profit organizations.
