May 21, 2019
President Larry Peltz called the meeting to order at 12:15pm. The meeting was held at The Kwataqnuk Resort. Jeff Tuttle led us in song. Dick Beighle gave the invocation.
Announcements are as follows:
Rotary minute: Board meeting discussion. Grant given to Lake County Connect, suicide prevention program. Talk of satellite clubs in Ronan and an evening club in Polson.
“Happy bucket”: Larry Phil Barney, Wayne Schile and Dick Beighle
Guests. Ron Bone introduced his neighbor Bud Kelly.
Bret gave an update on Festival for Youth.
The drawing was won by Martin Olsson. He gave the money to Festival for Youth
The June 4th meeting will be held at the Boys and Girls Club in Ronan. Club director Aric Cooksley will be the featured speaker.
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Brodie Moll had the program. He introduced Jodie Paxton, Executive Director of the Lake County Housing Authority and Ronan Housing Authority. She spoke of the challenges their agencies face in offering low income housing. The waiting list stands at 225 families waiting for placement in a unit. She says units become available and are given on a first come first serve basis, depending on whether families qualify. She said many folks are extremely grateful to have a place to live and others take very little if no pride in ownership and cause extensive damage. Jodie said that Ronan properties are being removed from the list of open units because the owner to renovating them and then selling them. She is working on funding of construction of 24 new units to replace those lost. She said they are the only agencies that rent to anyone who qualifies.
The next Polson Rotary meeting will be Tuesday, May 28, 2019. Ray Woolridge has the program and his quests will be Lake County Community Development Leadership Academy graduates.
May 14, 2019
President Larry Peltz called the meeting to order at 12:15pm. The meeting was held at The Kwataqnuk Resort. Jeff Tuttle led us in song. Dick Beighle gave the invocation.
Announcements are as follows: Larry announced that long time member Bill Tremper had passed away.
Response to the 2019-20 Programs and Monthly Assignments has been underwhelming. All of us need to volunteer for a program and/or a monthly assignment. We have 42 empty monthly assignments and 32 empty program slots. An updated email was sent last week. Please respond.
Rotary minute:
“Happy Bucket”: Larry P., Megan, Dan, Tom, Ed, Toni, Rich, Larry A., Dick B., Sharon, Dave, and Rob all had Happy Bucket information. Lots of happiness in the room.
Guests. There were no guests of visiting Rotarians.
The drawing was won by Rob Hanson and given to the Martini Fund.
The May 21 and 28 programs will be switched. Brodie will have the 21st program and birthday talks are slated for the 28th.
Larry spoke about the Festival For Youth partnership applications for this year in Bret’s absence. Four entities applied and were interviewed; The Flathead Lakers, Polson Middle and High School Bands, Polson Junior Golf Program, and Mission Valley Aquatics. We will partner with all four with the following funding: PHS Band and Junior Golf $6000 each, Mission Valley Aquatics, and Flathead Laker Youth program $3,000 each. Rotarians will sell tickets for Rotary and youth partners have an opportunity to add on to their sales. There will be five prizes on our tickets and an additional raffle ticket for the motorized bicycle for $5 each for those folks who don’t want to spend $25 on a ticket.
Karen Dunwell had the program about the Polson Flathead Lake Museum. Most of her presentation was concerning the Homesteading of the Flathead Reservation. The Bitterroot Valley was settled between 1820 and 1830’s with about 2000 natives. The Hellgate Treaty in 1855 established the Flathead Reservation on 1.9 million acres. Tribal families got 80 acres of farm land or 160 acres for grazing.
In 1910 the surplus land opened for homesteading. Homesteaders had to live on their land for 5 years and have at least a 12’X14’ structure. Soon after a 7 year drought started and 20-30% of homesteaders left. Boats were the method of transportation as it took 1 ½ hours to travel across the lake instead of 6-7 hours by stagecoach. Community members built the roads to help facilitate growth. Churches were active and held tent revivals. Today there are about 5000 native Americans in Lake County and about 25,000 non-natives.
The museum is open Monday –Saturday from 10-4 and Sundays from 1-4, from May 14 until September 16. The museum needs support for their fund drive for roof and other needed repairs