Posted by Mike McIntosh
The Casper Rotary Club
 
 
This week's meeting will be held:
Monday, April 30th, 2018
at the Ramkota Hotel and Conference Center
800 N. Poplar St.
Casper, WY  82601
 
Greeters:
Tim Havasi
Guy DeWitt
 
Inspiration:
Kendra Ziler
 
Program: North Platte River update
__________
 
 
Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
04/23/2018
 
President Richard Schwahn called the meeting to order promptly at 12:31, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.      
                         
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Lisa Scroggins
 
Greeters:
Maribeth Plocek was our greeter today and she introduced the members who brought guests:
  • Eve Stahl introduced Erin Jarbue (RMOC);
  • Les Crawford introduced his Granddaughter Tiffine Canepe;
  • Al Metz introduced his wife Margaret Metz;
  • Bill Pierce introduced Carter Napier (City of Casper);
Song:
Gary Pehrsen had us all stand and sing “Happy Days are here again”
 
Vickery Fales Hall gave her classification talk today; she is the Director of Donor Relations for the Wyoming Community Foundation which is what brought her and her family to Casper. She is from Wapiti WY and she the oldest of four girls, her family has the Rimrock Dude Ranch and also an outfitting company. She is a fifth generation Wyomingite; her ancestors came to Wyoming because of one of the kiosks in the Buffalo Bill Show was advertising for farmers to come to Wyoming and settle in Cody. The family ended up with the Dude ranch because they traded a grocery store in Meeteetsee for it. She worked almost every job on the ranch as a youngster so she learned a lot. She has ridden her horse to Jackson and back when she was 12 years old. Lots of adventures. In High School she got to serve as a senate page for Senator Al Simpson in D.C. for six months. She studied political science at UW and was then able to serve as an intern for Senator Craig Thomas who is also from Wapiti. While in college she lost her little sister to a car accident and her family has a fund at the Wyoming Community Foundation in her sister’s memory which helps the children’s theatre production in Cody. She married her husband Bryant while in college and next month marks their 17th anniversary, they have two children ages 7 and 5. They spent some time in CA both San Francisco and Southern CA after college. She has worked mostly with non-profits in fund raising positions which she really enjoys. They moved back to Wyoming in 2007 to run Bill Cody Guest Ranch which is just one drainage up from her family ranch. They did that for about three years which was her only for profit sector job. She started working for the Community Foundation about six years ago as the Director of Philanthropy and as the staff has grown she moved into her current position. She was diagnosed with Hodgins Lymphoma and was treated and is now a cancer survivor. They love languages and love to travel the world as a family and recommend it to everyone. She also thanked her sponsor, Liz Becher.
 
President Schwahn did a Rotary TidBit about how Rotary recognizes giving by individuals like we have been doing with all of the Paul Harris Fellows we have awarded the past few weeks.
 
Al Metz and his wife Margaret were awarded the Paul Harris Major Donor Level 1 today, and were awarded a crystal and a set of Pins. Thank you and Congratulations!!
 
Family of Rotary:
  • Denise Prugh passed around a book for us to write notes to our long time Rotarian Robin Mundell for her 70th Birthday coming up.
  • Fred Feth announced that his daughter was just promoted to the Director of Science and Technology for the U.S. Army Missile Defense Agency, which puts her at the fifth tier from the top of the U.S. Government.
  • Jim Porter announced that his daughter just spent a couple of months doing firefighter training in Idaho and graduated this weekend and is now a full-fledged firefighter and EMT in Idaho Falls ID.
  • President Schwahn said that Martha Rakestraw needs a ride to and from Denver Thursday and Friday, Jim Anderson and Bill Schilling volunteered to take care of it.
Rotarians of the Week:
  • President Schwahn nominated those who participated in RLI this past Friday and Saturday; John Griffith, Bill Schilling, Jason DeWitt, Jim Porter, Becky Byron, and Errol Miller.
  • President Schwahn recognized Red Nickerson as being back amongst us.
  • Lynn Lockhart nominated Denise Prugh for lending Lynn her husband to help her out.
Announcements:
  • Dave Simonson gave us a short report on the International fund, they had 9 students graduate from High School in Salt Creek in Panama where we are building the school rooms prior to this they had a total of 5 students ever graduate from High School there. We are buying the materials for the second class room now and hopefully it will be built by the end of July. The funds from the Golf Tournament will go to this project so please support the Golf Tournament. 
  • Hal Hutchinson announced that the Highway cleanup is May 24th 5:30 -7:30 and Nic Hill will be providing food, and John Griffith wants to do a social right afterwards. If you missed the sign-up sheets call Hal.
  • Reverend Bill Pierce announced that his Church wants to build some low income apartments on the Church Property and he needs help, so if anyone can help please let him know.
  • Jim Anderson announced that Greg Brondos set the date for the annual bike ride into Teton National Park for May 19th and 20th so mark your calendar and come join the fun, it is an event for families so please plan on attending. He will have sign-up sheets next week.
 
Program (Annual Club Business Meeting):
President Richard Schwahn called to order our annual business meeting at 1:07. A motion was made to accept last year’s minutes and it was seconded and passed with no discussion. He announced that the financial Form 990 is on the tables, a motion was made and seconded a discussion ensued asking about this past year’s numbers, Dick Jay pointed out that it is a fiscal year and this is the most current 990 and the year does not end again until June. Motion to accept financials was accepted. President Schwahn then had the board members come up and report a little on their avenue of service.
Denise Prugh started, her avenue of service is the Youth. One of the things they do is students of the month that Martha Rakestraw and Eric Easton coordinate. The second thing they do is the RYLA and young RYLA youth camps. They sent two youth last year, one was Denise’s son and the other was Jack Swanson’s daughter and they had a great time. Craig Valdez is in charge of the young RYLA and does a great job. Kevin Murphy is in charge of RYLA and he has seven teens signed up for this year already. They also work with the Dean Morgan Junior Honor Society and they did a service project of cleaning up Cross Roads Park with 35 JHS kids helping out.
 
Ronna Boril spoke, her area is club administration which takes care of several projects. The Pheasant hunt which Jim Anderson is in charge of, Denise Prugh takes care of the Christmas Program, the Teton Bike Ride that Greg Brondos takes care of, family of Rotary that Dan Odell continues to take care of, the annual Motorcycle Ride that Jim Porter and Doug McLaughlin take care of, two social gatherings per year which this year they changed from the family picnic to tours of the new High School buildings at KWHS and NCHS. The Golf Tournament is also under her purview, they have raised the goals for fundraising through that this year. Lastly is the directory which is at the printers so will be out soon.
 
Brian Deurloo takes care of service projects, Dave Simonson takes care of the International project. Phillip Rael is the new Duck Commander taking care of the Duck Derby this year that is our main fundraiser and this year the funds will be going to the biathlon project that John Griffith will report on. Bill Schilling is still taking care of the Rotary Park, getting the work finished up there. Steve Loftin and Randy Hein both are involved in putting the pavilion up at Rotary Park. Brian would like to get someone who is good with Drop Box or something similar to help organize a file management system in place, let him know if you can help.
 
John Griffith gave us an update on the biathlon project that is our new big service project for the community. He said that they are putting together a formal presentation for later this year to better explain the project. The project is much more than what they have explained, it is a 12 month of the year area, the first part is an agility area to get people engaged in the trail system and also a viewing area for viewing races etc. all year round. This area brings a lot of notoriety to Casper in the areas of the races that they host so it is a big deal for the Casper Community.
 
Jim Ruble, as past president was in charge of nominating the new board members and he announced that they have chosen the new board members and presented them to the board. Also on the committee with him were Nicole Tholson, and John Griffith. The nominees are, Jason DeWitt (Service Projects), Barry Johnson (Foundation), and Lisa Scroggins (membership and President Elect Nominee).
 
President Schwahn accepted a motion to accept the nominees, a motion and second were made, he called for the vote and all were in favor.
 
President Schwahn then adjourned the business portion of the meeting.
 
President Shwahn then did a quick run through on our visioning from 2016 for the five year plan of the club.   
 
President Richard Schwahn concluded the meeting at 1:31 letting us know that next week we will be back at the Ramkota and our speaker will be from the WY Fish and Game speaking on the North Platte River.