March 4th at Rotary
Greg Darling checked us in and we were welcomed by Sean Sullivan. Anthony Nordan gave our Invocation after President Dan called us to order.
Guests
Keith Brekke – Fargo Moorhead AM Club
Crystal Piekarski– DL Noon Rotary
Danielle Grant and Jake Hexum (Jake was proposed as a new member today)
Student Athletes
Bonnie Denzel introduced Tucker Henkes and Dustin Portales from Kennedy Secondary School.
Tucker is a nordic skier who shared some knowledge about the sport of cross-country skiing with us. He recently placed 11th at sections and qualified for the state meet at Giants Ridge where he felt good about how he placed among the thousands of skiers there.
Dustin was just coming off the state wrestling meet last weekend where he placed 3rd.
Songs
Kathy Austvold led us in songs:
#5 Sing a Song to Rotary, #34 Edelweiss, #3 Smile
Rotary Minute
Bob conducted a Q&A with Keith Brekke to help us get to know our DG Nominee better. Keith encouraged us to attend the District conference in Brainerd this year, in Bemidji next year and in St. Cloud the following year (his DG year). The conference in St. Cloud will be a 3-way joint conference with our neighboring districts.
Announcements
Randy Kempfer shared that we are sponsoring an outbound exchange student next year and would also like to host an inbound student. If there are any members or any community members you know of who might have interest in hosting a student, please let a board member know. A post was shared on our Facebook page earlier today and members were encouraged to share the post out to their networks to see if we can identify some potential host families.
Brags & Fines
Dan – thanked Anthony for filling in for him while he was out snowmobiling in the woods of Wisconsin
Greg - threw in for missing last week
Cyrstal - thanked everyone for being so welcoming
Dean – bragged about Tucker & Dustin and said they were both fantastic representatives of FFHS at their state meets. He also said the FFHS Robotics team finished 2nd at Regionals and got the #1 robot there out of 60. He also gave a shout out to the Otter boys and girls basketball teams....they both have playoff games this week and they appreciate the great community support.
John - congratulated Ken Harty on the Progress Edition and the Citizen of the Year, endorsing the great choice.
Anthony gave a scooter buck and paid a fine in advance for missing next week to go visit the capitol
Keith O. – helped a lost Otter Card find its way back to Bob's wallet
Keith Brekke – had a fifty and three ones and decided to throw in his three ones
Wally – reported on attending Chiropractic Day at the Capitol last week (alongside the bikers)
Sean - contributed for poor attendance lately and for a trip to Puerto Vallarta with his family last week
Program
Keith Olson introduced Brian Tjaden to give his classification talk. Brian joined the club in 2019 sponsored by Keith. Keith explained that he and Brian are related – Brian’s grandma & Keith’s mom are sisters.
- Brian was born at an air force base
- He is the son of Sonny & Sandy Tjaden
- He has a brother and a sister
- They moved to Grand Forks air force base early in his life and had one of the longest residencies at the base's history
- He wanted to be a fighter pilot when he grew up, but problems with his vision prevented that from happening
- He excelled in the chess club in high school and was an Eagle Scout
- His family moved back to Fergus Falls in 1975 when his dad retired from the air force. He was 14 at the time and in the 45 years since then he has worked for about 30 different employers in Fergus Falls.Sweeping floors at Woolworth was his first job, then washing dishes at The Lantern Café and soon hehad five jobs at the same time.
- After high school he went to college, the first in his family to do so. His first attempt didn’t go so well, but he did come back and went on to get his Master’s Degree in Engineering.
- He had many different titles with many companies large and small, including IBM. He has owned some companies and worked for some Fortune 100 companies. His work afforded him many opportunities to travel through the years.
- Brian described himself as a problem-solver.
- He currently works with Weichert Realty after moving back to Fergus Falls about 5 years ago.
- He has a son who graduated from Gustavus and lives in Minneapolis and a daughter who graduated form U of M. She was a Rotary Exchange student to Denmark right after high school and she just completed a term as a Rotaract President. Now she is hoping to study abroad with her Master’s.
- Brian introduced his wife, Danielle who joined him for the meeting today because je told her he was taking her out to lunch.
- Brian wrapped up his presentation by saying he always want to learn more and he can’t stand still.
We clearly have a bright and talented member with a vast amount of life experience in Brian Tjaden. It was fun to learn about him and especially to learn about his daughter's connection to Rotary. We're glad you're in our club Brian - thanks for sharing your classification story today!
