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On March 24th and the 31st, we were joined by Honorary Rotarian Elaine Olson. On the 24th, President Anthony announced a Rotarian was issuing a $100 challenge for everyone to be vaccinated against COVID -- more details on that will be shared at today's meeting. We also saw Anthony pay for having to leave the meeting early; Buzz Lundeen encouraging us to read Erika Lahti's article on the vaccination effort in The Daily Journal, Dean Monke following up on the report in our newspaper of his impending retirement, and additional brags by Randy Kempfer, Ken Harty and this writer. Ken Harty introduced the subject of his brag, Kathy Diekman from the Chahinkapa Zoo. She was joined by her colleague, Kyle, the curator at the zoo, and a boa constrictor. (Don't get me wrong -- I am not using boa constrictor to describe Kyle.) An interesting fact she shared with us was that boas are related to pythons but are different in that boas give live birth while pythons lay eggs (as do most of my efforts to make a joke). She also said that they have goats coming out of her ears, but they were not visible to this writer on Zoom. Kathy reported that in 2020 Chahinkapa received a quarter century award from the American Zoological Association and that the year was one of the biggest ever seen in terms of number of visitors, attributing a lot of that to the inhibitions to travel during the pandemic. The zoo's orangutan will turn 35 this years, weighs a svelte 310 pounds (you have to remember who is writing this) and got back on track this year by correctly predicting the winner of the Super Bowl after missing on his prognostication a couple years in a row (that's what a 50/50 chance will do for you). Chahinkapa is a Native American term that means "end of the woods," which they have adapted to say "where the Minnesota woods meet the Minnesota prairie." Admissions are $11.25 for adults, $9.25 for children, with military and seniors receiving one dollar off. I wonder how many of us were glad to hear Kathy but preferred a Zoom version over live when she brought a snake instead of a baby kangaroo. On the 31st, we started out by Brian Tjaden and Keith Olson, in the presence of a disinterested employee of Olson Furniture, draw this year's winning raffle tickets. Todd Jacobs won the $1,000 first price on a ticket sold to him by Buzz Lundeen; a Brian Tjaden won the second place prize of $500; M & R Sign won one of the $250 prizes on a ticket sold by Buzz Lundeen and Anna Gantner won the other $250, on a ticket sold by Gregg Darling. Buzz Lundeen sold $1,700 in raffle tickets as our leading salesman. This years raffle raised $7,350 gross, the expenses (including the money given away) amounted to $2,251.45, so we netted $5,098.55 to apply toward a contribution to our City for the Splash Pad. We also conducted an election for next year's slate of officer's and board members, as printed in last week's Round's, with all elected. In terms of brags and fines, Anthony paid for having to leave early and also to thank everyone for the success of this year's raffle, with special kudos to Brian Tjaden for his efforts. Dan Johnson paid for missing a couple meetings and to acknowledge Brian for having both sold Dan's home and finding a house for Dan and family to purchase. Wally Cole honored the Fergus Falls Police Department for its tireless work on our behalf and thanked Ken Harty for putting his letter of thanks in The Daily Journal; the police called Wally one evening at midnight reporting they had found the door to his establishment ajar and they had Wally come down to do a walk through and make sure nothing was amiss. Buzz Lundeen paid to share a visit with their eight month old great-great grandson. Last but not least Peter Wasberg reported he enjoyed filling bags at the United Way the previous day with Katie Johnson, Brian Tjaden, Zach Stach and Wally Cole. Our speaker, Michele Anderson from Springboard for the Arts, was invited by Tim Hunt and brought us an update with what is going on at Springboard. Michele is the Rural Program Director for the organization, which has two offices, one in a newly remodeled old automobile shop on University Ave. near the capital in St. Paul and the other here in Fergus Falls. The Fergus Falls office opened 10 years ago. About eighteen people are employed by the non-profit, with three here in Fergus Falls and the rest in St. Paul. She proceeded to highlight the various programs of Springboard, including a residency program for artists who come to Fergus Falls and live in the old nurse's dorm on the state hospital grounds; a 12 part curriculum for artists to develop business skills; one-on-one career consultations; tax workshops for artists; an Artists on Main Street program for which she is the trainer; sponsoring a national Rural Arts and Culture Summit which Rebecca Peterson started when she was at the Center for the Arts and which Springboard took over when she went to Duluth; and something called a Rural Regenerators Fellowship involving the Upper Midwest and which will see ten rural leaders coming to Fergus Falls for two weeks this summer. Most of the Springboard's funding is through donations from private foundations such as the Bush and McKnight Foundations, with government funding tending to support one-off projects. Michele believes that since coming to Fergus Falls the organization has probably brought two million dollars into the community. She also mentioned that Blaine Buseth took their business training out of high school and will soon be opening his gallery on Mill Street; he also did a public art piece for the rooftop of Springboard's St. Paul office. The local office is in what was originally the Benson furniture building, with Keith Olson's grandfather buying it in 1930; it was touted as the most fireproof building in Fergus after its rebuild necessitated by the cyclone of 1919. |
