Rotary Club of Casper WY
Meeting Summary
01/05/2015
President Bill DeGraeve called the meeting to order at 12:32 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to our first meeting of the New Year and thanking John Starnes for taking over the Christmas party meeting while Bill was out of town. President Bill also reminded us to make Rotary a part of our life, remembering the things we learned at our fellowship meeting a few weeks ago. Rotary is like minded leaders coming together to exchange ideas and take action.
Inspiration, Pledge, 4-Way Test:
Sandy Widmer
Greeters:
Lisa Hubbard and Ronna Boril were our greeters, Lisa introduced guests:
Vickie Diamond introduced Chad Pew;
Lisa introduced our exchange student Giulia;
Jim Beck Introduced Ray Bogan from Channel 13 news;
Song and merriment:
Dennis Lower was not with us so President Bill treated us to a good chuckle and then Gary Pehrson led us in singing “Auld Lang Syne” with Brenda Peters on the piano.
Family of Rotary:
Liz Becher announced that Rotarian Stephanie Reid became engaged over the Holidays;
President Bill DeGraeve announced that Charles Schoenwolf became a grandpa again;
President Bill with great sorrow let us know that Past President Mike Ward’s wife Donna passed away last night and we will get the word out this week about any services.
Leesha Thorvaldson announced that Heidi Foy joined the Climb Wyoming team for her new employment.
Rotarians of the week:
Liz Becher nominated Mike McIntosh and Gary Pehrson for making a cameo appearance as Santa and helper at the City of Casper’s breakfast and celebration of the retirement of Linda Witko from the City of Casper after 24 years of service. Thanking them for spreading the Christmas joy. Bill DeGraeve nominated John Starnes for filling in for him at the annual Christmas Party. Bill also nominated Denise Prugh for putting together the Christmas Party. Lori Klatt nominated Heidi Foy for another wonderful New Year’s Eve First Night Casper celebration. Brian Deurloo nominated Ann Tollefson for all of her tireless help with the dual language immersion program. Jim Porter nominated John Lawson for being sworn in as a County Commissioner. President Bill DeGraeve nominated the following for helping wrap the gifts for the Christmas party: Eric and Dawn Easton, Clarke Turner, Angela Emery, Jim Beck, Jim Fowler, John Watson, Connie Brezik, Crystal and Mary MacGuire, Susan and Beau Griffith, Lindsay Gordon, Charlotte Gruner, Giulia Barbin, Dennis and Julie Gazdiewich, Mark Owens, Barry and Stacy Johnson, Tony Valdez, Dick Jay and Krista Beale.
Also everyone who helped with the Christmas party were nominated, including Santa, especially Santa.
Announcements:
Leesha Thorvaldson announced that Climb Wyoming is looking for some single moms to participate in the upcoming training to help get them into a better paying job and to help them get future employment. So if you know of anyone who would be a good fit for this program please let them know about this great program. It starts January 20th and goes five days a week M-F 8-5 and goes until March 20th. After which they will help get them placed into job positions.
Classification Talks:
Today we heard from our Rotarian Krista Beale, who was first introduced to Rotary through our Duck Derby a couple of years ago and decided that she was interested in becoming a Rotarian so she asked Bob Barnard about Rotary and he got her taken care of and brought her into the club. Krista was raised in Oregon doing all of the normal outdoor stuff with her family so loves the outdoors. She got her degree in criminal justice and after school she went to Denver for a job and stayed there for 18 years doing training seminars with a motivational speaker. After that she got into real estate. Then in 2005 with some family tragedies going on she decided to move back to Oregon to be with family. During the time she was living there she met a man from Wyoming and so she moved to Wyoming to enjoy what we have to offer here.
Announcements:
Bill DeGraeve had Mandy George stand up and announced that she is taking care of the prizes for the Foundation Dinner and needs people to donate prizes and someone to help her put the prizes together and collect them and look for more prizes. Several Rotarians volunteered, thank you for volunteering.
Program:
John Starnes introduced our speaker today, Mark Watson, the Director of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. Mark showed us a slideshow and explained to us what the commission takes care of for the State of Wyoming and the energy industry. The Commission is responsible for the implementation and regulation of rules for the energy industry in the State of Wyoming. This includes all aspects of oil and gas wells from the beginning to the end. They have 36 employees to take care of the State and are the only State agency that is self-funded. The primary areas that they take care of are bonding all wells, they have hearings twice a month, they take applications for well permits which now involves 10 people to get them all done, they regulate any well treatments and track the production that comes from all of the wells in the state. In 1978 Wyoming was at its peak for drilling and since then has tapered off then with the horizontal drilling becoming more popular in the 2000’s production started to increase again. They are working on rules now concerning the drilling of wells close to residential homes some of which is the placement of high walls around the rig to hide the equipment on the ground and to help eliminate a lot of the light and noise pollution. He showed us a time lapse video of a drilling location from start to finish, which was neat to watch. Technology has increased the speed of drilling wells now. He then showed us a slide of the drilling below the ground and how the process works to protect the water aquifers and get to the oil and gas with the horizontal drill into the formation. A new rule for this past year for drilling is that they have to test the water in all of the water wells near the drilling site before they start drilling then they have to test again the second year after completion and also the fourth year so that they can track the wells to make sure that no problems have occurred. Wyoming was the first state to create rules on the stimulation of wells through the fracturing or fracking process. With these rules they are ensuring the protection of the ground water. They must identify and isolate the water zones so that no contamination can enter the water and they also must disclose to the agency all of the chemicals that they use to fracture the wells. There are only 1% of the fracturing fluids that are chemicals; the rest is sand and or water. The supply of oil in the U.S. has more than doubled to 9 million barrels per day and the demand in Europe has decreased so true to the normal commodity rules of supply and demand the price has fallen from a peak of $110 per barrel to around $50 now. So what will the price do now? It will either go up or it will go down.
President Bill DeGraeve adjourned the meeting at 1:19 with the ring of the bell, and he let us know that our exchange student, Giulia, will be speaking to us for a few minutes next week. Also no foundation board meeting tonight.
“Light Up Rotary”
