New Club President John Starnes called the meeting to order at 12:26 welcoming all Rotarians and guests to Rotary.

 

 

Brown Ewing and Chandra Ortiz were our greeters and Brown introduced guests:

Brown introduced Steve Domonkos’ guest Ethan Dexter;

Paulanne Doane introduced Casper College President Darren Divine;

Tom Thorson introduced Fred Feth;

Kevin Murphy introduced Greyson Buckingham;

Dusty Johnson introduced Mike Brown;

Victoria Ziton introduced her daughter Anna Sophia Ziton;

Jim Ruble introduced David Messenger and Jean Garrison from UW here with our guest speaker;

 

Dennis Lower treated us to a good chuckle and then Tucker Laprade stood in for Gary Pehrson and led us in singing “America the Beautiful” with Brenda Peters on the piano.

 

Martha Rakestraw thanked all Rotarians for all of the well wishes, prayers, and support she received from all during her difficult times with the passing of her husband. She is very thankful for the members of the club and truly feels that we are family.

Susan Griffith announced that her son John Griffith made it to the top of the Grand Teton Mountains.

Pam Walker announced that the brother in law of Peaches Lynch, Jim O’Grady, was taken to the hospital, Peaches added that there is no update yet.

Denise Prugh announced that her son and Tara Short’s daughter returned from Young RYLA and they had a wonderful time and it was amazing. She feels that we should have them come and report about their experience. She also thanked everyone for their hard work to make Young RYLA a success.

Richard Schwahn let us know that the son of Rick Reimann was married this past weekend.

Randy Hein let us know that Kevin Murphy is getting married next weekend.

 

Dave Bishop nominated Jim Meaner of the Five Trails Club and Kevin Murphy for transporting the youth to and from Young RYLA.

Tucker Laprade nominated Jim Ruble for all of his work and support for the Boy Scouts.

Bob Tarantola nominated all of the people who made the Golf Tournament a success, especially Anthony Martinez, Peaches Lynch, Dick Jay, Ronna Boril, and Sandy Widmer.

Pam Walker nominated all of those who helped with the ticket sales up at Bear Trap this past weekend, Brad Cundy, Tara Short, Rod Akker, Bert Toewes, Kevin Hawley, Rosalind Grenfell, Susan Thomas, John Lawson, Deb and Gene Theriault, George Bryce, Barry Johnson, Tom Broumley, Lori Klatt, Peaches Lynch, Susan Griffith, John Jorgensen, Glen Januska, Norb Weisbeck, Dennis and Julie Gazdiewich, Tony and Jan Valdez, Clarke Turner and Jesse Helm.

Susan Griffith nominated Pam Walker for all of her work working on the Bear Trap ticket sales.

Tara Short nominated Craig Valdez for getting the young RYLA kids home safe.

Pam Walker nominated Dan Sullivan, Mike Sullivan, and Dusty Johnson for the organization of the Governor’s Invitational Golf tournament.

Jesse Helm nominated Pam Walker for getting the Credit Card acceptance set up for Bear Trap and Tara Short for cleaning up the weeds beforehand.

Dave Bishop nominated his dad Floyd Bishop who is turning 95 and has been a Rotarian for many years.

 

Past President Bill DeGraeve then gave out some awards to Rotarians from his Past Presidency. He gave an award to Mandy George for her work with the Rotary Foundation Dinner that raised $26,000 for the Foundation. He also gave an award to Martha Rakestraw for her work with Students of the Month. Bill then awarded Chad Nelson his sponsorship pin for sponsoring Dennis Jack.

 

Past President Bill recognized those Paul Harris Fellows that were gone last week.

Paul Harris plus two: Leo Riley,

 

Anthony Martinez gave us a report on the Golf Tournament and thanked all of those who helped organize, participated and sponsored the tournament. For their work on the registration table, John Starnes, Susan Griffith, Dick Jay, Pam Walker and Dave Simonson. Also Dave Simonson for taking pictures of the tournament. He thanked those who donated Canopies, Richard Schwahn, Dan Cantine, Bob Tarantolla and Sandy Widmer. Those who helped stuff the gift bags given to the participants, Victoria Ziton and her Daughter Anna Sophia, Diane Treick, Craig Valdez, Ronna Boril and Peaches Lynch, and a special thanks to Ronna also for hosting the activity in her home and for the wonderful appetizers. He then thanked the Hole Watchers, Doug McLaughlin and Lori Klatt for the putting green and raising $480, Troy Mack for watching the 11^th hole, with a net of $210; on number 16 hole, Martha Rakestraw with her nephew, Tony Valdez and Guy DeWitt for trying to give away a Mustang and Guy for donating the water. He gave a special thanks to Peaches Lynch, Dick Jay, Robin Mundell and Sandy Widmer for all of their hard work. The Goal was to raise $10,000 and tentatively at around $12,000 this year. President John then thanked all of these people as well as Anthony for a great tournament.

Pam Walker reminded us that the Duck Derby is coming up and more volunteers are needed, she will have signup sheets again next week. There is a meeting tonight for the committee, we are working the Farmers market and if anyone has any ideas of other places that we can sell tickets please let her know. She showed us the sponsor sign and thanked all of those who are sponsors. She then called all of those forward who sold books of tickets at Bear Trap to put a duck ticket on the wall.

Tara Short asked those who are donating a prize for the Duck Derby to please bring those to next week’s meeting.

Paulann Doane has Duck Derby posters if you would like one to hang up get them from her.

Tucker LaPrade was then awarded a 4-way test coin from President John for being the first to know that the Duck Derby is August 22.

Doug McLaughlin then reminded us of the Motorcycle/car ride to Logan Canyon UT. It will be the 14^th – 16^th and will be about 900 miles roundtrip. Signup sheets are on the tables.

President John then showed us a movie clip based on actual events of this ride from a few years ago, from the movie Wild Hogs, this gave us a great laugh.  

 

President Elect Jim Ruble asked Jean Garrison from UW to introduce our speaker today. Jean let us know that our speaker is Natalia Sharova, who just graduated from UW with her Master’s Degree in International Studies and she will be speaking about her Master’s Thesis project which she has presented around the State to different groups. Natalia presented us with a great presentation and slide show about Climate Change policy making in Australia. She chose Australia because this has been an ongoing debate in Australia for over a decade that involves the government officials as well as all of the leaders of their energy industries and the general public. The economy in Australia is highly dependent on energy industries such as oil, coal, and liquefied natural gas and such. At the same time Australia was one of the first to try and implement carbon tax to regulate the emissions to help with climate change. However after eight years of heated debate the climate change policies failed, the carbon tax only stayed in affect for about two years and then was removed. This made her curious and she wanted to better understand what happened. She visited three major cities in Australia and interviewed the key players in this climate change debate. She gave us a rundown of the timeline of the key players who were trying to create the carbon tax and those who were against it. The natural resource energy and mining were responsible for the past 25 years of economic growth in Australia and therefore the people are very protective of the energy industry. Then there came a terrible drought in Australia that lasted over ten years and was the worst drought in over 1,000 years. Due to this drought climate change was then in the forefront of everyone’s mind and so the people wanted something done about it so they moved forward with the carbon tax as there was bipartisan support in the government. By the end of 2009 the consensus for action waned as the drought ended and flooding began so the one party did an about face and support for policy was no longer there. Then when the climate change international conference was not a success as nobody in the world could agree on what to do for policy, Australia decided to not do anything either. The Carbon tax was actually implemented against political promises but was then repealed two years later. By 2013 over 60% of the population was now against the carbon tax. She discovered that energy industries are very effective in influencing government policy, this was a very interesting study because there was bipartisan and population support which was very strong and then a complete about face occurred. A great presentation on world politics and how different things can influence what occurs in the government. 

 

 

President John Starnes adjourned the meeting at 1:18 with the ring of the bell, reminding us that next week we are at the Petroleum Club and our district governor will be our speaker.