Club President John Starnes called the meeting to order at 12:28 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to Rotary. He also welcomed back Jim Fowler who recently went through surgery, and Ann Ruble who was in an automobile accident last week.

 

Crystal MacGuire and Doug McLaughlin were our greeters and Crystal introduced guests:

Crystal introduced our visiting Rotarian from the Jackson Hole Supper Club, Helen Bishop;

Bill DeGraeve introduced Dale Bohren;

Jim Ruble introduced his wife Ann Ruble;

Bret Ladenburger introduced Nicole Tholson;

Steve Loftin introduced Casey Allison;

Richard Schwahn introduced his wife Michelle Schwahn and his daughter and soon to be outbound exchange student, Madeline Schwahn and our exchange student and speaker today Elise Verboomen;

Martha Rakestraw introduced the assistant principal from Midwest Schools;

 

We inducted Darren Divine, sponsored by Paulann Doane, into the club today. Welcome aboard, we look forward to getting to know you.

 

Lynette Boatwright and Dennis Jack traded in their red badges for Blue badges today, Congratulations.

 

Dennis Lower treated us to a good chuckle and then Gary Pehrson had us all Rise and sing “Home on the Range” while swaying back and forth with President John.  

 

Robin Mundell let us know that she and Rodney will be moving to Las Vegas NV to help with Rodney’s health issues, she will miss our club and we will miss having her here with us. Good luck in the future Robin.

 

Our Student of the month today was from Midwest HS, Kaia Guzman who plans on going into the Army Reserves and studying to be a Life Flight nurse, good luck with your future.

 

Jim Allison nominated Steve Loftin for dragging Jim’s daughter to a Rotary meeting, a feat Jim has never been able to accomplish.

President John gave away three, four-way test coins. The first to Ryan Ford for being here two weeks in a row; and the other two to Denise Prugh and Cori Cosner-Burton for coming in late and still staying for the meeting.

Mike McIntosh then presented a banner to President John from the Rotary International Convention in Sao Paulo this past June.   

 

Richard Schwahn let us know that we will have two exchange students next year and we will need families to host them so please think about doing this, he then introduced our speaker today, Elise Verboomen, our exchange student from Belgium. He told us that she is a great young lady and we should consider taking her along with us when we have something fun to do that she might enjoy. Elise showed us a great slide show with pictures of her family and her city. She is from Brussels Belgium and showed us comparisons between Wyoming and Brussels. They have a monarchy where the U.S. as a president. We have a lot more people and a much larger area than Belgium; as a matter of fact she said the Wyoming is bigger in area than Belgium. They speak three different languages, Dutch, French and German. In Brussels they speak all three. She is 17 years old and her birthday is February 2, she has two brothers, both older, a mom, dad and a stepdad. She has a cat and a horse at home and has already graduated from HS in Belgium. She loves running, cooking and horseback riding along with traveling and spending time with her family. She joined the cross country team at NCHS and really enjoyed being a part of the team. She showed us a picture of her classmates from HS in Belgium, she said that there they stay with the same group through all of their classes.  She is really involved with scouts in Belgium and has done some service trips with them to other places like India. She enjoyed meeting all of the other exchange students from around the world and spending time with them. In Belgium they do not have French Fries; they have Belgium Fries, which are much better. They also are famous for waffles and chocolate, there are two different types of waffles one is heavy and the other is lighter and fluffier, both very delicious. All of the chocolates are excellent with more dark pure chocolates instead of the milk and sweet chocolates that we have here. They also have different types of beers, they have monasteries that make their own beer and cheese which is very popular there. Belgium has a popular singer who performed for the Soccer World Cup, Stromae, who also is starting to become known here in the states. She showed us some of the streets and the center plaza in Brussels. They have the street of restaurants, and Rue Des Pitas or the street of Gyros where everyone goes for dinner. The center plaza, La Grande Place, is very beautiful with the buildings all around and the streets breaking off from it and people hanging out in the evenings. She let us know some differences between Belgium and the U.S. such as the age of driving there is 18 and here is 16, mainly because they have very good public transportation so teenagers really do not need to drive. The age of drinking is 16 there and 21 here, they do not own guns. School is completely different than here, they do not have extracurricular activities like sports teams and such; they just go to school to learn. There they only have small cars and not big trucks like we have here, she showed us picture of the small cars and the streets that are very narrow thus the small cars. They have trains for public transportation that go everywhere; it even goes right in front of her house. She then thanked the Schwahn family along with the rest of her host families that she will be staying with. So far she has been to Yellowstone, which she really enjoyed. She has been to a few UW football games even though we did not win she still enjoyed them. She has been to other places and even was the Duck at the Duck Derby for a while. She went with the Schwahns to a Tuff Mudder contest in Colorado which she enjoyed but got really dirty doing it.  She went to Independence Rock which was great. She loved the hunting at the Rotary Bird hunt.  She has a list of things she wants to see and do; Fly Fishing, learn how to shoot, see a rodeo, go skiing and snowboarding, go camping and horseback riding, to meet a cowboy, go for a ride on a hot air balloon and a boat or anything else that anyone may think she would like to do just give her a call.  She ended with her year book quote, “coming back is not the same as never leaving” and she thanked everyone for this great opportunity and she really is enjoying her time here.

 

President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:33 with the ring of the bell, reminding us that next week we are meeting at the Petroleum Club where we will be for the next three weeks, then Casper College for one week and then we will be back at the Parkway for our Christmas meeting on December 21^st. Next week we will hear from Dave Simonson about our Panama International project.