President John Starnes called the meeting to order promptly at 12:25, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting and a special welcome to Dick Wimbish and Drew Perkins.

 

 

Peaches Lynch and Jeff Johnson were the greeters today, and Peaches introduced the members who brought guests:

 

Dennis Lower cracked us up with a couple of good jokes, and then Gary Pehrson had us all stand and lead us in singing “God Bless America”

 

 

Marsha Rakestraw let us know that Jimmy Goolsby’s mother in law passed away last week.

Charles Schoenwolf reminded us that yesterday marked one year since the death of our dear friend and fellow Rotarian Stan Lowe, he is missed.

 

Steve Loftin nominated all of those who helped at the Food Bank of the Rockies this morning, Deb Theriault (empty box wrestler), Al Metz (Helping everywhere), Mark Owens and Dennis Jack (breaking boxes), Guy DeWitt (filling boxes with frozen meat when he could hit the box), Charles Schoenwolf (doing a better job filling boxes), Anne Ladd and family (helping everywhere).

Tara Short nominated the representatives in the club from Sinclair, KTWO TV, and Hilltop Bank for helping with the annual Father’s Day in the park.

Sheryl Foland nominated all Rotarians who support the Rodeo that has been in town.

 

Dr. Michel Skaff presented a slide show presentation and told us about himself. He started by thanking his Sponsor Dennis Lower and also Red Nickerson for being his friend and inviting him to attend meetings also. Dr. Skaff was born in Lebanon in April of 1971 during a time of great turmoil and war. He survived the war and went to school, he studied in the 1990’s at the American University and got his BA in Biolgy and then went to the University medical center to get his M.D. While studying there his parents emigrated to Canada but he stayed behind to finish his studies. After his M.D he came to the U.S. and did his residency in internal medicine and then did a research in cardiology on a molecular level of study of congestive heart failure and he did a fellowship in cardiology at the University of Louisville. In 2005 he finished that fellowship and he got married to his wife Maggie who is also from Lebanon during this time. Six months after getting married they moved to Casper where he started his first career at Wyoming Cardiopulmonary. He really likes to snow board so he loves Casper. They now have four children ranging from age 4-10. In 2009 he started a health clinic that was supposed to be an urgent care clinic and they have now opened six locations in the State of Wyoming. They are trying to unite health care in Wyoming to keep more people in Wyoming for their healthcare. He did a Master’s degree in healthcare management to help him better run his businesses and his practice. He now has his own private practice.

 

 

Program (Kenneth Marken from Crimson Dawn Productions):

PE Jim Ruble introduced our speaker today, Kenneth Marken, who spoke to us today about his work on Wyoming based films and his future plans for Wyoming film making. He brought his son Daniel along to help run the presentation. His short film about a Riverton Wyoming single mother won an award at the Barcelona film festival and he showed us the trailer for the film “That You Had Never Called” which looks like a great film. In early 2015 there were two showings of the film at the Rialto Theatre which went well. He placed on each table the advertising cards for two films they are looking to produce, Unaware and Little America. They did a short bit of Little America back in the 80’s but were not able to get enough funding to complete the project like they wanted. This past December a couple of friends from Germany came to town and they shot some theatrical trailers for the film to get a feeling for the film, he showed us some of the footage they shot. When he speaks to people about supporting and investing in Wyoming films he tells them about the uniqueness that is Wyoming. The European investors are especially enamored with Wyoming. He feels that we are unique and have a lot to offer the film making industry. They are scouting many locations in and out of the state to produce the film Little America. They are looking outside of the state because they have to have the best return on investment thus they have to find the least expensive places to film including any governmental assistance. He is hoping that the filming of and financing of the next film, Unaware, can be completely done within the State. He already has TV companies from other countries asking about Unaware so the appetite for good Wyoming films is enormous.  He said that due to the lack of experienced people and film infrastructure in the State of Wyoming many people have to be brought in to work on the films and shows have to be brought in which increases the cost of the production. Also with little to no help from the State for costs it makes it more costly. He feels that a film can still be made here and be profitable, not as profitable but it can still make a return on investment. There are a lot of people in our area that would love to be involved in the film industry in Wyoming if the opportunity was available and there were investors to bring it all together. It would help better diversify the economy in Wyoming and would bring jobs and attention to Wyoming which would improve the current industries we have here. He opened the floor for discussion and questions where we learned that the office of tourism for the state doesn’t really help with the film industry with any incentives unfortunately.

 

President John Starnes concluded the meeting at 1:30 with the ring of the bell and reminded us that next week we will be back at the Petroleum Club and the meeting will be the passing of the torch to the new Club President.