Club President John Starnes called the meeting to order at 12:26 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to Rotary. He also let us know that the information for the directory will be making its rounds so please check your information and sign off that it is correct or make changes if needed.

 

Bob Auflick and Guy DeWitt were our greeters and Bob introduced guests:

Bob introduced visiting Rotarian Lynn Lockhart from five trails;

Lynn Lockhart introduced her daughter Franci Lockhart;

Dennis Lower introduced Brett Johnson;

Steve Shive introduced Fred Feth;

Susie McMurry introduced Fred Catchpole;

Craig Valdez introduced his brother John Valdez;

Brian Deurloo introduced Scott Wells;

Don Harris introduced Stephen Finzo ;

Mary Lynne Shickich introduced visiting Rotarian, her brother, Joe Shickich from the Lake Union Rotary Club in Seattle WA;

Bob introduced our exchange student Elise;

 

Dennis Lower treated us to a good chuckle and then Gary Pehrson had us in singing “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” with Brenda Peters on the piano.

 

Steve Loftin let us know that Rotarian Dick Shamley’s wife, Wilma, passed away over the weekend, our thoughts and prayers go out to Dick and family.

President John announced that Rotarians Jack Swanson, Denise Pugh and Brown Ewing have children in the Casper Children’s Choral and they were all in the newspaper this past week.

Bob Auflick let us know that Scott Skavedahl’s daughter won the High School golf tournament this weekend by 15 strokes, she is the defending State Champion and is headed off to the State Tournament. 

 

Mike Stepp nominated Eric Easton, Paulann Doanne and Guy DeWitt for their participation and help with the T-Bird Trek half marathon run over the weekend.

Steve Shive nominated Mark Owens for becoming the State Clerk for Presbytery of Wyoming;

Jim Anderson nominated Dave True for receiving the Golden Spur Award in Lubbock TX on October 17^th.

John Patterson nominated Susie McMurry for her work at the Suicide Walk this weekend;

Tom Thorson nominated Ronna Boril and Jim Anderson for both surviving ATV rollovers over the weekend;

Brian Deurloo nominated Dave Elmer for ordering replacement Ducks for the Duck Derby and for paying for the shipping costs to get them here, Brian also nominated Dick Jay for all of his work for the Board and the club.

 

Vicki Diamond sponsored by Bill Schilling, received her blue badge today, congratulations.

 

Ethan Dexter introduced himself to us today; Ethan thanked his sponsor, Steve Domonkos. Ethan is originally from Kansas and went to Kansas State. He and his wife moved here in 2011, his parents moved here in 2004 so he was already familiar with Casper. He accepted a position as Regional Business Development Representative for a Psychiatric Hospital out of Utah in 2011 and was stationed here in Casper. He is now working at Blue Cross Blue Shield working with group health insurance sales and service, has been there for about 15 months. He and his wife have three children ages 6, 2 and 1 which keep them busy. He is quite happy and excited to be part of our Rotary Club and to participate in serving our community.

 

Jim Ruble introduced our speaker today, President and CEO of the Wyoming Community Foundation, Craig Showalter, who spoke to us about the wonderful work the Foundation is doing throughout the State. The Foundation was started in 1989 and has distributed over 8,000 grants totaling over $44.5 Million. They have six local boards with three priority areas and a ton of volunteers. He asked those in the audience that have served on the boards to stand, there are a few Rotarians who stood. They have over 300 volunteers throughout the State that support their projects and fundraisers. They have just done an extensive rebranding to connect everything that they do with the Wyoming Women’s Foundation, The Foundation for Wildlife and the After School Alliance, so now with the branding people can connect all of the things that the Foundation does. The Foundation touches every corner of the State; they develop resources and work with donors to get funds to give as grants to other non-profits in the State, they do not keep any of the money. The money goes back to work in our communities. They have over $114 million in assets and work with all types of donations from Canadian airplanes to estates. They have established endowments with some of these donations in order to continue the donations perpetually to help more people. They have developed many connections with donors in order to better help the whole State. They have the cost of raising each dollar at eleven cents per dollar which is very good stewardship for a Foundation that passes the money on to other non-profit organizations throughout the State. They are also equipped to help people set up family Foundations and use the money the way your family wants it used and they will manage the funds for you and make sure the money goes where you want it to go. The Foundation also works with matching scholarships to recipients, they help non-profits do a better job and find board members; they are a great resource for any non-profit organization. Some great questions were asked and answered, very educational presentation.

 

Past President Bill DeGraeve commented that when the Rotary Club was building the Crossroads Park, the Foundation donated $10,000 for that project.

 

President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:30 with the ring of the bell, reminding us that next week we are at the Petroleum Club and will hear from our exchange student we sent to France.