Minutes for August 22, 2016

 

President Jim Ruble called the meeting to order promptly at 12:26, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting, and gave a special welcome back to Bob Auflick

Jim Allison and Maribeth Plocek were the greeters today, and Jim introduced the members who brought guests:

 

Dennis Lower cracked us up with a couple of good jokes, and then Tucker Laprade had us all stand and lead us in singing “Do Re Me”

Dan Odell, sponsored by Charles Schoenwolf, was inducted into the club today, welcome aboard Dan.

Tim Anderson introduced himself to us today in his classification talk. Tim is the market President for A and B Bank here in Casper and has been a banker his whole career. He graduated from the University of ND and took his first banking job in Williston ND upon graduation. He has five brothers and one sister, his Dad was a banker and most of his siblings worked for his dad growing up but he didn’t because the pay wasn’t high enough. This is his second time living in Casper, he first moved here in 1997 when Community First Bank bought the Key Bank. They lived here for ten years then moved to Billings. They have three boys who all graduated from UW and all are working here in Casper, Nathan is a teacher at NCHS, CJ works at First Interstate Bank, and Sam, the youngest who is working at Menards as a manager. He met his wife, Diana, in Williston ND when they were both working at the same bank. They decided to get married and knew that the bank did not like married couples working together so he quit and took a job in Minnesota after another semester at school and they were married shortly after that. He likes being involved in the community and looks forward to being a part of Rotary and thanked Dennis Jack for being his sponsor.

Chad Nelson announced that he and Shannon are expecting their second child, CONGRATULATIONS!!

Dennis Lower let us know that Brett Johnson’s mother-in-law passed away last week.

Lynn Lockhart announced that Martha Rakestraw moved into a new home last week.

Ann Ruble announced that Elise, our last year’s exchange student scored a 97 on the TOEFL test and the college only required an 80. She also is starting an internship on the French Riviera at a four star hotel on September 1. Her Mom sent a lovely note thanking all of the Rotarians for taking such good care of her.

Tony Valdez said that Kevin Christopherson got to see Elise last week and he played a recording of Elise sending us all hugs!

President Jim recognized everyone who participated in the Duck Derby on Saturday and had them all stand.

He also nominated Brad Cundy for supplying cell phones for the two new exchange students this year.

Chad Nelson bought a sailboat trip from the Science Zone fundraiser and so he nominated Dr. Metz and his wife for the amazing day they spent sailing.

Charles Schoenwolf nominated Grant Stumbough for going with him in the boat to rescue Ducks, Grant had never been on a boat and doesn’t swim but he didn’t hesitate to jump in and help.

Tucker LaPrade nominated Mike Ward for his grandson receiving his Eagle Scout award.

Mike McIntosh nominated Denise Prugh, Ronna Boril, and Dick Jay for all of their hard work putting together the deal to allow Mike and his wife to purchase Gene and Pansy Prugh’s home.

Peaches Lynch nominated those who welcomed the exchange students at the airport last Wednesday; Sheryl Foland, Cori Cosner-Burton, Jim and Ann Ruble, Martha Rakestraw, Mark Owen, Les Crawford, and Jack and Kathy Swanson.

Peaches also nominated everyone who entered the Duck Derby tickets into the computer on Saturday; Chandra Ortiz, Lori Klatt, Mary Koernig, Glenn Januska, Steve Loftin, and Lisa Scroggins as well as Chandra Ortiz for all of the food she provided. She also nominated Richard and Michelle Schwahn for helping her throughout and Sheryl Foland for taking care of the money.

Deb Theriault nominated our exchange students, Tobe and Claudia for wearing the Duck costume at Jonah Bank.

Sheryl Foland nominated Lori Klatt and Mary Koernig for their assistance on the money count.

Grant Stumbough nominated everyone who helped put the booms in the water, John Lawson, Jim Fletcher, Gene Theriault, Jesse Helm and son, John Griffith, Dave Elmer, Brian Deurloo, and Guy DeWitt. He then nominated and thanked the people in the kayaks and canoes and boats who were corralling the ducks, Dan White and his daughter Alexsis, VH McDonald, Wayne Heilly, Jason DeWitt, Dave Nickerson, Stephen Schnell, Charles Schoenwolf and Bill DeGraeve. He also thanked the team that pulled them from the water, Jim Fletcher, Daron Gruner, Tom Thorson and Dusty Johnson.

Eric Easton nominated Angela Emery for all of her work organizing the Riverfest portion with all of the vendors and such.

Larry Madsen nominated Casey Allison for taking care of the winner board for him this year.  

Program (Dr. Todd Becksted):

PE Richard Schwahn introduced our speaker today, Dr. Todd Becksted, local surgeon. Dr. Becksted spoke with us today about Adipose derived stem cell therapy. He was introduced to this therapy by a friend of his who is a surgeon in Denver who has been doing this therapy for a while. He took his wife to his friend for him to do this therapy on her knee and was so impressed with how well it worked that he decided to go to school to learn more about it and he now does this therapy here in Casper. The stem cells he uses are taken from the fatty adipose taken from your own lower abdomen. These cells are able to reproduce the needed cells in the injured joints and places in your body that need repairing, whether it be bone, cartilage, blood vessels, muscle, ligaments or nerve tissue. By using your own stem cells for this procedure there is no need to take anti-rejection drugs. To get the cells they infuse an anesthetic with IV fluid into the lower abdomen and then they do a liposuction to remove 60 cc of your fatty adipose tissue which they then separate out the stem cells and get anywhere from 200-800+ million stem cells. They then draw the patients’ blood and spin it down to the Platelet Rich Plasma and then mix that with the stem cells and inject that mixture into the joint or area of the body that needs the repair. He initially just did joints and then people in town began to learn more about this and discovered that it has benefits for people who suffer from MS, Parkinson’s, macular degeneration, etc. These patients began asking and became persistent about having him do this therapy for these conditions and convinced him to do the therapy for these as well. They have also discovered that by doing IV injection of the cells rather than injecting them into the joint the cells have a targeting mechanism which allows them to go to the places in the body that needs some repairs. This has worked to where when people get the injection for one thing then other damaged areas of the body tend to be helped as well. He has had 100% success rate for the joint therapy, the rest of the therapies is harder to measure due to the nature of the illnesses but the patients have reported great improvement. Dr. Becksted stated that there is research going on to use this therapy to help treat pain rather than prescribing opioids. He said that recovery wise you can go home immediately and there is no waiting to recover. There are studies going on with stem cells to regenerate spinal cords, they have been paralyzing rats and then doing stem cell therapy on them and they are regenerating the spinal cords. He feels that within the next 30 years they will be doing this on humans and doing away with para and quadriplegics. They are also working on stem cell therapy for heart failure and stroke victims, which are having promising results. With this therapy being so new they do not have a lot of data and there are a lot of areas they are still studying to see what else this therapy can help with.

 

President Jim Ruble concluded the meeting at 1:30 with the ring of the bell and reminded us that next week we will be back at the Parkway Plaza and our meeting will be Tim Barnes from Blacktooth Brewery in Sheridan.