President Dick Jay called the meeting to order promptly at 12:25, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

 

 

Miamie Sleep and Chastidy Greenwood were our greeters today and Chastidy introduced the members who brought guests:

Gary Pehrson had us stand and sing “I’m Looking over a four leaf clover” in preparation for Saint Patrick’s Day;

 

Lori Klatt gave us some more history of our club from 1929-1930.

 

Dale Bohren let us know that his wife Susan was declared Cancer free after a long struggle.

 

Stephen Schnell thanked everyone who participated in the Science Zone fund raiser and declared them all Rotarians of the week.

Richard Schwahn nominated Jesse Helm and Lisa Scroggins for helping out with the panel for the new board member nominations coming up in July.

Kevin Murphy nominated Charlie Shopp as his son’s KWHS Basketball team won the State Championship. He also nominated Mike Britt as KWHS also won the State Title for Wrestling for the first time ever and they won the volleyball as well.

Tim Havasi nominated John Griffith and Guy Dewitt for helping out with the Cowgirls UW Tennis Team that was in town a couple of weeks back. John helped out with the beer and wine and Guy donated water for the event.

Maribeth Plocek was nominated for being nominated 1 of 7 women of influence for being trailblazers in their field.

Daron Gruner was nominated for his daughter being in Alaska competing in the National Cross Country competition as she was the winner for the region.

Bill Pierce nominated Liz Becher for taking him food when he was down sick.

Lauren Griffith nominated Stephen Schnell for the great job he and his crew did on the Science Zone Elemental Evening;

Phillip Rael nominated Casey Allison for handling the troops at the Food Bank last week.

Casey Allison nominated all of those who helped at the Food Bank last week, Becky Byron, Miamie Sleep, Steve Higginson, Mandy George, Charlie Shopp, Dave McNulty, Charles Schoenwolf, Errol Miller, Jim Porter, and Bill DeGraeve;

President Dick Jay nominated Lynette Boatright and her crew for the great job she did with the exchange student dinner last night;

Eric Easton nominated Brad Cundy for sponsoring a fundraiser dinner for the ski patrol;

 

Ronna Boril received her Paul Harris plus 4 today, congratulations and thank you.

Paul Wilhelm gave his classification talk today, he is from Wheatland WY and then moved to Torrington as a child and graduated from High School there. He moved to Casper in 1984 after receiving his degree in finance from UW. He started working at Farm Credit here in Casper in 1984. He moved away in 1986 and then returned in 1990 and started out in Real Estate. In 1996 he met his wife Heidi and her two girls and they made a family together and two years later their youngest daughter was born. They have four grandsons and a granddaughter. He is still working in Real Estate here in Casper.

 

Francisco thanked everyone for their support this year and with the fundraiser dinner and said that he is having a great time because of the people.

Dale Bohren has been working on the club history and has it ready for the printer a week from Friday but there are some loose ends and would like anyone who wishes to give input about things that made an impact on you. Please send it to him soon. He thanked everyone who has contributed.

Lisa Scroggins announced that this week is the orientation at Racca’s 5:30 to 7:30 on Thursday evening.

 

Brant Rieker was our SOM today, a great young man from KWHS.

 

President Elect John Griffith introduced our speaker today, Lisa Mcgee from the Wyoming Outdoor Council. She said that the Council is the Wyoming statewide conservation group. 52 years ago the Council was founded in Lander WY with the simple mission of protecting Wyoming’s environment and quality of life, now and for future generations. Tom Bell founded the Council, as a Lander Native he was very concerned with protecting the State. The Council believes three fundamental things, first that conservation is not a partisan issue, second that public lands, wildlife, and clean air and water are worth defending, and third informed and engaged citizens make a difference. They are a membership group and have members all over the state and they have a volunteer board of directors. Neil Short is their board chair and he lives here in Casper. Wyoming is about 50% public lands which makes Wyoming very unique for hunting and fishing and other outdoor things. One of the things they have pushed back on is the thinking that the State could better manage the public lands than what the Federal entities can. They feel that the State does not have the money and resources to manage them properly. This year Wyoming became the third State, after CO and NV to designate a State Holiday, so Wyoming Public Lands’ day will be the 4^th Saturday of September each year. The way they address the energy and oil production is that yes we can have a robust energy industry in Wyoming but it can’t happen everywhere, there are certain places that need to be protected from that. We need to decide what the highest and best use of the land is. Sometimes the other uses of the land outweigh the use for energy production. The Council is a huge advocate of the sagebrush community from the big game to the sage grouse habitats. Protecting this wildlife and finding the balance to protect their habitats is a big part of what they do. We have the world’s longest mule deer migration corridor that runs from the upper Hoback to the Rock Springs area and is over 150 miles long. The Game and Fish has been designating and protecting these corridors as they are very vital to the protection of this wildlife and they would like to not see any development in those corridors. Wyoming has new guidance to deal with leakage in the oil and gas industry. The companies are now required four times a year to inspect their infrastructure for methane leaks to help preserve our clean air and better maintain their equipment. Some of the companies are doing it even more often because it saves them money by not losing the methane. She said there is a five thousand well gas field coming soon to Converse County and they have to do this with all of their infrastructure which will help protect our air quality in our area of the State. They are big advocates of water testing to help protect the water as well as the drilling companies to make sure that the water quality is not compromised. Brooks Lake Lodge has a lagoon system that had so much algae that it caused one of the largest fish kills in the State. They worked with the Lodge Company and last year they installed a state of the art bio dome system that will eliminate much of the nutrient overloading caused from their lodge operations. They are committed to find solutions and to work with the citizens in the State to help find good solutions. They started a new training called Conservation Leadership Institute to help train the people on what it is they are doing and to give them the tools to be advocates as well. They will offer this training every year. You can learn more about the Council by visiting wyomingoutdoorcouncil.org

 

President Dick Jay concluded the meeting at 1:21 letting us know that next week we will be back at the Ramkota. The speaker will be Captain Shawn Dickerson from the Wyoming Highway Patrol.

 

“Be the Inspiration”