July 16, 2019
President Hu Beaver called the meeting to order at 12:15pm. The meeting was held at The Kwataqnuk Resort. Jake Baumann led us in song. Roger Grimes gave the invocation.
Announcements are as follows:
“Happy bucket”: Larry P/Hu/Bret
Visiting Rotarians: Sheriane Eckenrod and Bob Dayton. Sheriane introduced her guest Gene Duncan from Fresno, CA.
Bret Richardson gave a Festival for Youth Update. Polson Rotarians are needed to help sell tickets at the Main Street Cherry Festival Saturday and Sunday, July 20-21. Contact Bret if you’d like to help. 11 chili cook-off teams have entered. Bret said tickets sales are the top priority right now!!! If you need more tickets contact Larry.
Matt O’Neill won the drawing and gave the money to the Martini Fund.
The monthly second Tuesday social will be held Tuesday, August 13th at 5:30 at Fiesta en Jalisco.
RYLA students sponsored by Polson Rotary are currently at camp and will present their experiences at the Tuesday, August 13th general meeting.
The program this week was birthday talks. Eileen Kane was first to present her birthday talk and she spoke about 2 issues facing Alaska, She recently attended a friends daughter’s wedding and reported that 2/3rds of Alaska is on fire. One fire near Fairbanks threatens her daughter’s home and another fire of nearly 88,000 acres on the Kenai Peninsula has caused major smoke issues near Anchorage. Eileen said the second issue is the new governor slashing state budgets. The University of Alaska has had its budget slashed by nearly 50% according to Eileen.
Ray Wooldridge spoke next about Ponca City. Oklahoma, where he grew up. He said the E.W. Marlin Company, which would later become ConocoPhillips, was the headquarters of Conoco before merging with Phillips. Ray told of how Mr. Marlin had borrowed money at a local bank during the depression and when the bank pressured him for payment; Mr. Marlin went to New York City to meet with the bank CEO and hand over the keys to the E.W. Marlin Company. The banker reportedly said why don’t you keep it and run it and pay us when you can.
Jeff Tuttle spoke next. He was born in Rochester, New York and spent much of his youth with his father, who was a Broadway producer. Jeff said he lived in Illinois, Florida, New York, Virginia and finally in Washington D.C. where he and his wife worked until retirement. He said they found Montana, when their youngest son wanted to attend the University of Montana in Missoula. Jeff said they bought land in 2008 and built on it two years ago. Hu Beaver was their contractor.
Janet Mulroy spoke of using the $500 given to the Healthy Kids program last week by Polson Rotary will be used for backpacks and school supplies and that her program will now be a part of a Day of Hope event on Saturday, August 24th in Polson. She hopes to supply 100 school kids with backpacks and supplies.
And Larry Ashcraft spoke about the 70th Anniversary of the Mann Gulch Fire near Helena on August 5, 1949. Larry said 15 smoke jumpers were sent to battle the blaze and only 3 survived. He spoke of his earliest memories of the fire, how he and high
school classmates helped build a trail to Mann Gulch and how he later became a smokejumper and a pilot.
The next Polson Rotary meeting will be Tuesday, July 23, 2019 at 12:15pm at the Kawtaqnuk Resort. Larry Peltz will introduce Amy Grout.
July Programs:
July 30 Gayle Siemers/Andrew Lau
July Assignments:
Invocation: Roger Grimes
Justice: Wayne Schile
Song Leader: Keith Urbach
Sergeant at Arms: Rob Turner
