Wear a Hat to Rotary Day!
President Dan McVeigh opened the meeting by welcoming everyone and thanking Dick Wertz for setting the mood with his piano interlude, Kevin Williams (KVIE) for the additional musical selections, greeters Kathe Nathan (Merchants National Bank) and Past President Dave Cohen (Cohen-Durrett LLP), and Ed Wright (Martensen Wright PC) for his generosity in sponsoring the wine reception.
In observation of the Club’s first ever “Wear a Hat to Rotary Day,” President Dan provided an overview of the history of the hat over the millennia. Through the assembled throng, beau chapeaus of every description nodded in fascination. Leigh White (KTXL TV FOX 40) was then invited to the podium to offer her “Thought for the Day”, a thoughtful ode to paying attention to the important things in life. Dick Osen got everyone in a boisterous mood by leading us all in a rousing chorus of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” it being spring and all.
After the Pledge of Allegiance, stand-in Sargent-at-Robyn DeLong (Coldwell Banker) introduced our Guests, Prospective Members and Visiting Club members, all of whom were welcomed warmly.
President Dan introduced the head table: Chair of the Day Past President Scot Sorensen (St. John’s Program for Real Change), our Speaker Steve Swatt, Invocator Leigh White, New Member Ted Kappel (Kappel Mortgage Group), and member Rita Gibson (Rita Gibson Ins & Invstmt Svcs Inc.).
The Meeting Sponsor was Randy Friedman (U.S. Navy), who donated his time to Pam Whitehead, Executive Director of the Triumph Cancer Foundation. Pam provided background on the organization which is a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization whose mission is empowering cancer survivors to recapture their lives after cancer treatment through physical fitness. Pam was followed by Angela Chindgren, Board Member of Triumph Cancer Foundation and a program graduate. Angela described her battle with breast cancer and how essential Triumph Cancer was to managing her treatment and eventual recovery.
President Dan then had the pleasure of inducting our newest member, Ted Kappel. His sponsors were Rita Gibson, Dave Higdon (California Moving Systems) and Steve Ruland (Ruland’s Office Furnishings), Rita had the honor of introducing Ted whose father was a proud Rotarian. Ted has been a mortgage broker since 1995, starting his own company in 2004. He managed to guide the business through the financial crisis, is now thriving and has several offices in the Sacramento area.
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Finally, the much-anticipated Best Hats of the Day Contest results were announced. Jacqueline Kirkwood (Children's Receiving Home of Sacramento) awarded the best women’s hat to Bonnie Plummer (National University/Sanford School of Education) for an exquisite Easter themed number. Dave Higdon awarded the best man’s hat to Jeff Stone (John O Bronson Co/HUB Int'l) for a Russian Spetsnaz hat that Jeff said not only keeps his head warm while skiing but stays on no matter how fast he’s moving. Finally, President Dan awarded the Best Dam Hat award to Mead Kibbey for his hard hat from a dynamite company who supplied “a lot” of dynamite for the construction of a dam. Is there anything Mead hasn’t won?
It was Social Media time as Steven Walker (Fast Break Tech, Inc.) provided a very helpful video introduction to the features and functionality of the Club’s new app. Very impressive!
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Past President Scot Sorensen then mounted the podium to introduce our Speaker, Steve Swatt. Steve is a veteran political analyst and public affairs executive. He is a former award-winning political reporter with twenty-five years of journalism experience with The San Francisco Examiner, United Press International in Los Angeles, and KCRA-TV (NBC) in Sacramento. Books he has published include Fair, Balanced . . . and Dead (2009), and Game Changers: Twelve Elections that Transformed California (2015).
Steve began by lamenting how much he feels local television news has fallen in the past several decades. To him it seems more like a job of audience gathering as opposed to news gathering, and that’s a shame.
He observed that history is not a series of random events, but rather a series of interrelated events. He related the history of Leland Stanford who served as California’s Governor from 1862 – 1863 while retaining his ownership and leadership of the Southern Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. According to Steve he made no attempt to separate his political from his business interests. For example, the federal Pacific Railway Act provided subsidies and land to help with the development of the railway system. There was a subsidy for flat land, and higher subsidy for the foothills, and an even higher one for mountainous regions. The local authorities managed to define the “mountainous” region as beginning at Arcade Creek in Sacramento such that the entire track from there through the mountains received the highest subsidy. Steve observed that they rightly deserved the tag, “The Men Who Could Move Mountains.”
In 1911 Hiram Johnson was elected Governor and served in that role from 1911 – 1917. He was part of the progressive movement that pushed against the railroads and the commercial and political power it wielded over the state. In 1911 the state passed 22 state constitutional amendments creating among other things the power of the people to recall elected representatives, the powers of referendum and initiative. This allowed the people to circumvent the legislator to influence legislation directly. During the most recent election there were 11 initiatives on the ballot that garnered $465 million in spending.
So to Steve’s point, the initiative process we live with today has its roots in Leland Stanford’s efforts to promote his railroad over 150 years ago.
With that, President Dan dismissed everyone wishing them a good week.
Thank you John Swentowsky (Swentowsky Photography)for the photos!