Club President John Starnes called the meeting to order at 12:26 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to Rotary. He called for a big round of applause for the success of the Duck Derby this past weekend.

 

Brian Deurloo gave us a recap of the Duck Derby and thanked everyone for all of the hard work. The official Duck Derby recap will be September 28^th, but a preliminary calculation puts us at around $104,000 and sold around 4400 tickets. He thanked all of the committee chairpersons who stepped in and worked hard to make it all happen. Dave Elmer, Pam Walker, Krista Beale, Theresa Corkill, Tara Short, Richard Schwahn, Grant Stumbaugh, Paulann Doane, Jim Beck, and Angela Emery, along with Hal Hutchinson for passing the torch and helping out.

 

Ethan Dexter and Dennis Jack were our greeters and Ethan introduced guests:

Ethan introduced visiting Rotarians, Lynn Lockhart and Dave Scriven from 5-Trails club, and Dan Himelspach from Denver Mile-High Club;

Denise Prugh introduced her son Dane Rasmussen;

Dennis Lower introduced Brett Johnson;

Chad Nelson introduced Jeremy Shearer;

Steven Schnell introduced his girlfriend Carmen Albright;

Tara Short introduced her husband Donovan Short and her daughter, who was also the duck at the Derby for a while, Darrah Short;

Ed Opella introduced his wife Tammy;

Richard Schwahn introduced his daughter Madeline and his wife Michelle;

Richard Schwahn brought our exchange student, Elise, forward and introduced her then let her speak, she is from Brussels Belgium and speaks French and is attending NCHS;

 

Dennis Lower treated us to a good chuckle and then Gary Pehrson had us in singing “This Little Light of Mine” in honor of the tenth anniversary of hurricane Katrina, with Brenda Peters on the piano.

 

 

President John let us know that there is a card circulating for Mary Lynn Schickich, who contracted viral meningitis.

 

Brad Cundy nominated Cori-Cosner Burton for her article in the paper today;

Grant Stumbaugh nominated Gene Theriault for his leadership in getting the booms in the river and Randy Hein for getting all of the duck wranglers in the river;

Brian Deurloo nominated Steve Domonkos for showing them how to do an Eskimo half roll in the kayak;

Angela Emery nominated Eric and Dawn Easton for being at the Riverfest helping from early morning to late evening;

Gene Theriault congratulated Mike Ward’s grandson Dillon Stupak from Scout Troop 13 and Bill Schilling for the article on Rotary Park that they were in;

Doug McLaughlin nominated Mike Sullivan for the great article he wrote on Stan Lowe;

Grant Stumbaugh nominated Guy DeWitt for being in the river for over two hours;

Randy Hein nominated everyone for the great round up of all the ducks, Dennis Gazdiewich, Tony Valdez, Al Metz, Val Roberts, Bill DeGraeve and his son Andreas, Clarke Turner, Steve Domonkos , Kendall Bryce and Gene Theriault for getting more boats and hands;

 

We had two students that attended Young RYLA that spoke to us today about their great adventures, Darrah Short and Dane Rasmussen. Sounds like they had a wonderful adventure and they encouraged all of us to spread the word about RYLA and young RYLA.

 

Past District Governor of District 5450, Dan Himelspach, spoke with us for a few minutes, he is the Chair of the Polio committee for our Rotary Zone. He spoke with us about where we are with Polio. He gave us some statistics that he also put on the tables for us to take home. It was amazing to see how many people suffered from and died from Polio not that many years ago. Just this past year of 2014 there were only 359 cases reported with 306 of those in Pakistan. This year up to this point only 36 cases have been reported with 29 in Pakistan and the other 7 in Afghanistan. Nigeria was one year free of reported cases as of July 24 and all of Africa as of August 11 of this year. The good news is that the Pakistan Army is going to now do their best to protect the Polio teams that are going out to immunize so that will help to finish up the eradication.

 

Jim Ruble introduced our speaker today, Kenyne Schlager, former Mayor and current administrator of Mountain Plaza Assisted Living. She spoke with us today about the assisted living and how it works in Wyoming. She said that the Chapter 12 State of Wyoming rules and regulations are too strict and move people from assisted living into nursing homes a little too soon. She is working to change this so that they can spend more time in assisted living where they actually should be. She told us of some of the signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s that we need to be aware of in order to help our loved ones when the time comes. When the elderly first go into the assisted living they adjust fairly quickly, within two weeks, and they start to enjoy the new community where they are now living and it extends their life because they have people around to help them be more active and enjoy life. They even have a memory care unit that helps those with Dementia and keeps a closer eye on them to help with the special needs they have. She encourages all to help their loved ones seek assistance early, ask questions, watch for the signs and take action. You will be a blessing to them by watching for the signs and taking action when needed so that they can be here longer and be taken care of properly.

There are different levels of assisted living that starts with independent living where the staff is there just in case but no assistance is normally given. The next step is assisted living where the staff can help with the activities of daily living when needed, such as giving meds, helping with showers etc. There is then memory care which assists those who are suffering from memory problems like dementia and Alzheimer’s, from there they would go into a nursing home or hospice care for those who are needing a higher level of care.  The care is expensive and people need to be prepared financially in case this care is needed later in life for you or your loved ones.

 

President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:27 with the ring of the bell, reminding us that next week we are back at the Parkway Plaza and the program will be presented by WMC.