|
Kathy Austvold gave the invocation while Wally Cole was our song leader, having to abandon an effort to sing one song because of our unfamiliarity with it in favor of the always popular "Three Blind Mice." Lori Larson introduced our Student Guests from the college, Mike Mach and Nikola Schulz. Mike is from Fergus Falls where his father is a psychiatrist and his mother works at LifeSmiles Dental, while I thought I heard Nikola say she was from Germany. Mike hopes to pursue a degree in finance while Nikola wants to go into accounting. We were all reminded to invite local clergy to our meeting the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and then Ben Durbin said the sign-up sheet for Salvation Army bell ringing will be here soon. As shown above, President Steve inducted Katie Mastel into the club, joined up front by her proposer, Lori Larson. Keith Olson left a scooter buck while Ben Durbin rose (after a report about their sale) to pay a self-inflicted fine for the article in The Daily Journal about the joint Catholic-Lutheran church service to celebrate The Reformation. Lori Larson was looking forward to the scholarship reception at the college the following day and the announcement of a $355,000 endowment from Rosemary Rosengren. Katie Mastel was excited about joining the club and President Steve seconded that. This writer appreciated Anthony Nordan for bringing his baby daughter to the meeting in lieu of missing it, while Mary Pettit was appreciative of the rose sale effort and looking forward to a Keller Williams sponsored soup lunch at the Y the following day. Pete Wasberg reported that John MacFarlane's son, Jim, head coach of the girls hockey team at Moorhead High School, has been elected into the Minnesota Girls Hockey Coaches Association Hall of Fame. He will be inducted on February 22, 2018, during the Minnesota girls state high school tournament in St. Paul. It was also reported that the day was John's birthday, so we spontaneously sang Happy Birthday to him. Our student guest Nikola rose (there is that word again) to thank us for hosting her and Katie Mastel wanted to contribute her first dollar for Lori Larson inviting her to be a part of "this whole thing" and to tell us she is going to be responsible for Justin Timberlake's after-party following his performance at half-time at the Super Bowl. Finally Wally Cole noted the absence of any hunters bragging about their deer harvest so he reported he got four deer -- on camera. Pete Wasberg then introduced Marsh Erickson, UW Resource Development Director, to talk to us about the United Way of Otter Tail and Wadena Counties. She had put out a package of Smarties for each one of us at our tables and those who had not already eaten theirs (or were restocked by her) were asked to remove an identified number of them for each $100 in costs of employment (1), rent (5), student debt (1), utilities (1), phone (1), gas (1), food (3), and car insurance (1); there are 15 pieces in each package so for the normal household worker, that left one Smartie, or $100 to cover everything else that needs to be paid, including school activities for their children, paying a dentist, repairing the car, etc. Our United Way provides funding for 32 other non-profits in Otter Tail County and also provides charitable services in various ways. She mentioned, for example, the stuffing of 793 backpacks with supplies for school children and, just that morning, 120 food packs being put together for the weekend student feeding program. Marsha also talked about Minnesota Act of Kindness Day on November 10, giving us a list of 58 items we could do to enlighten someone's life. She thanked our club for being a major funder of the Imagination Library program. This year's United Way goal, in Otter Tail County, is $335,000, and about 35% of that has been raised. In Wadena County, which became part of the organization this past March 1, the goal is a more modest $35,000, both goals based on what has been historically raised in both counties. It is clear that there is a lot of need out there and our United Way plays an important part in meeting that need for those in our area. |
.jpg)
