The Pulse - August 16, 2016
Posted by Jay Lowden on Aug 18, 2016
The bell rang and President Dan McVeigh called the meeting to order. Thanks were given to Kevin Williams (KVIE) and Dick Wertz were recognized for spinning the tunes and playing the piano; Allison Cagley (California Musical Theatre) and Ivan Wild (The Salvation Army) were thanked for greeting everyone at the door.; and John McIntyre (Mercy Foundation) and Bob Miller (First US Community Credit Union) were thanked for setting the room up for the day.
John McIntyre provided the thought for the day - Seven Lessons to be Learned from Basketball. He then provided a direct correlation of those lessons to Rotary which definitely apply, except in the case of our softball team, and wrapped it all up with having a beer.
President Dan reported on the passing of Past President Charlie Gray and we observed a moment of silence in his memory.
Tom Bacon (Kidder Mathews) introduced a variety of guests, prospective members and even a visiting Rotarian from Lincoln. President Dan then introduced the attorney heavy head table. For a moment I thought they might introduce a new firm – McVeigh, Bartholomew, Rediger, Cook and Lemmon.
Bob Rediger (Rediger, McHugh & Owensby, LLP) was the sponsor of the day and allocated his time to Roy Alexander (Sacramento Children’s Home) who provided a brief history lesson on the founding of the home and introduced the kickoff of their 150th Anniversary celebration.
We welcomed Dennis Cook as the newest member of the club. Dennis was sponsored by John Lemmon (Knox, Lemmon & Anapolsky, LLP) and Dan McVeigh. Dennis is an attorney with Cook Brown, LLP which is celebrating its 35th Anniversary.
Last week was a terrific week for Rotary as the Golf 4 Kids tournament was extremely successful. Thanks for a terrific tournament. Bob Miller shared that 107 players hit the course where they viewed 100 tee sponsor signs thanks to the efforts of Diane Mizell.
Bob then thanked the sponsors: Premier Sponsor - Gilbert and Associates, Lunch - Deli Delicious, Dinner - Sacramento Delta Property (Ted White), Awards – (Steve Ruland) Ruland's Office Furnishings, Hole-In-One– Niello, Long Drive – (Gabriel Gendron) Lyon Real Estate / Stanford Home, $50k Shootout – (Kelly Moran) Moran & Associates, Bloody Mary – (Kathy Herrfeldt) Home Care Assistance, Wine – (Dave Higdon) California Moving Systems, Beverage Cart - (Jeanne Reaves) Jeanne Reaves Consulting, Fun Hole– (Dave Cohen) Cohen – Durrett, Closest to the Pin– Dick James & Associates, Putting Contest – Safe Credit Union, Breakfast – Dale Carnegie, Gold Balls - JD Lauppe, and $10,000 Shootout Sponsor –Safe Credit Union.
The tourney would not have been successful without the hard working committee of Dick Osen, Rick Osen (Sutter Builders, Inc.), Bob Daly (Financial Network Wealth Advisors), Dave Higdon, Heidi Hershenhouse (Land IQ, LLC), Michael Bullington (Pacific Advisors), Diane Mizell and Jaclyn Kirkwood (Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento). Lastly Bob thanks the numerous volunteers and Rotary staff for their hard work in making the day truly outstanding.
Announcements were short and to the point for this meeting. Kathe Nathan (The Merchants National Bank) and Jon Snyder (Snyder Commercial Real Estate) both talked about the importance of, and the need to, give blood; John Swentowsky (Swentowsky Photography) asked for volunteers for Loaves and Fishes on August 30th, Bob Rediger mentioned the Hunchback of Notre Dame performance at the Music Circus on August 27th, and Barbara Thompson (Sky Ridge Ranch) let us know that if you want a good volunteer gig for Sac Century you should volunteer this week.
A variety of Roast, Boast and Toasts were made.
Hal Bartholomew (Bartholomew & Wasznicky LLP) stepped to the podium to introduce and provide the warm up for our day’s speaker Kayte Christensen. Kayte comes from the large metropolitan community of Likely, California, the 11th largest town in Modoc County in northeastern California. She knows the difference between a Cow and a Steer, went to UC Santa Barbara, was drafted into the WNBA where she played for 6 years, and now works for the Sacramento Kings and the KHDK morning drive show.
Kayte gave credit to her hometown Rotary club for starting her journey by funding an AAU team that allowed her to be seen by college scouts that landed her at UCSB. She is a self-described sports junkie and credits her success to hard work, networking and taking a risk. She left the WNBA because of a back injury and when given the option for back surgery the decision to call it a career was easy. She is extremely straight forward and somewhat blunt in her comments and says she tends to not hold anything back.
She works the KHDK morning show with Carmichael Dave and as the King’s sideline and pre- and post-game TV analyst. She has a work schedule that only a truly driven individual would love. She gets up at 3:30am for the radio gig, gets back home at 11am, after a short nap it is off to the Kings which often keeps her at the arena until 11pm. This year she will be traveling with the Kings so that schedule just gets more complicated when on the road. She was asked about the future of bringing back the Monarchs, and she said that the Kings leadership discussed it when they first bought the team, but it not been discussed for a few years. They are trying to figure out the complexity of owning and running an NBA franchise. In regard to DeMarcus Cousins, she indicated that she is not okay with his antics on the floor, and that he has started his career. One of the worst situations possible. She referred to it as dumpster fires with multiple coaches, significant roster turns over, etc…She said he is valuable to the organization, has tremendous skills, and hopes that he can show his ability under the new coach in the same manner that he did under Michael Malone.
President Dan thanked Kayte for her presentation, Tom Bacon informed us all that we will be right back at the same place next week to hear, and drink wine from, Sean Minor from Sean Minor Wines and Four Bear Winery, and the meeting was adjourned.