President Dick Jay called the meeting to order promptly at 12:23, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

 

 

Phillip Rael and Becca Steinhoff were our greeters today and Becca introduced the members who brought guests:

Gary Pehrson led us in singing “Happy Days are here again”

 

Liz Becher let us know that she has a card going around for Carl Tinsman, who spoke to us back in 2017 and is a Boulder CO Rotarian. He had a stroke and is unable to speak right now.

 

Bill Schilling nominated John Griffith and Lisa Scroggins for attending PETS this past weekend and he also nominated Liz Becher for agreeing to be the Captain Superior of the PETS program for the District.

Liz Becher nominated Dennis Gazdiewich for his Casper WY bolo ties that he made for District Conference, they were able to present one to our Rotary International President Elect Mark Maloney who will now wear it around the world on his travels as RI President this upcoming year.

Kevin Murphy nominated Pinky Ellis who turned 90 years old on February 20^th. He also nominated Ryan Hauck for his new Baby Girl.

 

Anthony Martinez announced that the Golf Tournament will be on July 27^th so save the date.

Lisa Scroggins reminded us that there is a new member orientation and everyone is invited to attend it will be next Thursday the 14^th at Racca’s pizza from 5:30 to 7:30.

Lynette Boatright announced that the International student dinner is coming up on Sunday at Frontier Brewery. It is a fundraiser for the International students and she has tickets available and they are also online.

Richard Schwahn announced that they are in need of some help for April 5,6 & 7 for the Cowboy Country Music Stage that is put on by the District. It is for the youth exchange outbound students and need some volunteers for host homes, transportation and food among other things. There are signup sheets on the table or you can contact Richard to volunteer. He also reminded us to be filling in our service journals.

Taylor Schwahn let us know that he is still in need of volunteers for the upcoming Duck Derby, he needs someone to help with sales and prizes. Please let him know if you can help out.

Barry Johnson announced that the Gala is May 4^th and everyone should have received a postcard to save the date. The invitations will be going out in a week or so, please make sure you RSVP by April 20^th.

Casey Allison asked for volunteers to pack food at the food bank after Rotary today.

 

John Griffith presented Richard Schwahn and Dick Jay with the award for membership growth from 2017-2018 that was awarded to our club at PETS this past weekend.

 

Jordan Bertagnole from NCHS was our SOM today. He is a fantastic young man from an awesome family and he will go far in his future.

 

President Elect John Griffith introduced Matt Snyder, General Manager of the Casper Horse Heads Baseball Team. Matt spoke to us about the team and the plans for promoting the team this year. He moved here last September and is originally from New Jersey. He has worked with several different teams as he has worked his way up in the industry. He trained with a gentleman named Ken Sheppard who at the age of 23 won the Bob Freitas award for his promoting of his team by sleeping in the press box until his team finally won a game. He slept there for a month and a half until they finally won a game. This shows that the promoters will do anything and everything to promote their teams. He said that with Casper in the summer time there are a lot of things that are going on that they compete with so they have to do everything to get people to come to the games. He focuses on three things, cleanliness, friendliness and food, music, and promotion. The cleanliness and friendliness are the easiest part to do so the most focus goes on the third of food, music and promotion or the guest experience, “fan first”. For the food not only do they have the hot dogs and hamburgers and nachos etc. they also will have Philly cheese steaks and hopefully some Donnell’s Candy ice cream treats. Music is also a huge part of making the experience fun and exciting for the guests. He is a student of Barnum and Bailey so he believes in creating a circus at the baseball games to make it fun for the guests, so he does music and special promotions. For example, they will have an industry night for those who work in the hotel and restaurant industries, giving them special ticket prices. Also since they are the Horse Heads they will have a Godfather night, which should be awesome. One of his favorite that they will do is called the Teton Trombone, one of their guys is a trombone player so he will be play the trombone from different spots in the stadium and each time he plays the beer song the people in that section will get half off beer for the next half inning. They will have a race me promotion against a track star from NCHS. Another one will be the Rocky Mountain Car Wash promotion where they will choose the dirtiest car in the parking lot to receive a free car wash. His favorite will be the sweetheart night where they will pick a young girl in the audience to receive a bouquet of flowers and a plate of baklava. Best promotion of all will be Rotary night, June 20^th, where we will all have a great night. He is very excited for this season and he then took questions from the audience. The first question was where the name came from. He explained that they are named after the head on the oil pump jack, which is called the horses head. They will play 32 home games so be prepared to attend some games. He also said that they have three Wyoming players so far and are still looking for more players. They also have need of some host families for the players as well as the interns if you know of anyone who can be host families.

 

President Dick Jay concluded the meeting at 1:03 letting us know that next week we will be back at the Ramkota and our speaker will be Lisa McGee of the Wyoming Outdoor Council.

 

“Be the Inspiration”