President Dick Jay called the meeting to order promptly at 12:28, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.   

 

 

Greeters: Monika Ratliff and Dusty Johnson were our greeters today and Monika introduced the members who brought guests:

Song and Merriment: Gary Pehrson led us in singing “God Bless America”

 

Dusty Johnson let us know that Charlie Shopp’s younger brothr had a stroke and has ben dealing with melanoma so they are concerned that he may have a brain tumor as well, so please keep them in your thoughts and prayers. 

 

President Dick Jay nominated Steve Loftin and his crew for helping the rescue mission get all of their beds set up and anchored. He also nominated Brad Bodoh and Mike Sullivan for the BSA Strength of America Banquet that Brad put together and Mike emceed.

 

Bill Schilling nominated Casper for the great Symphony from last week, also all of those who helped with the Business Leaders of America symposium.

 

Brad Bodoh nominated Dave Bruni for his help with the honorees for the Strength of America Banquet and for stepping in and accepting the reward when they were unable to make it to the banquet due to plane problems.

 

Kendra Ziler nominated Carley Applegate for helping our exchange student Fran check off one of his things on his “to do” list by introducing him to Senator John Barrasso today.

 

Jim Anderson nominated Dan Sullivan for doing the auction at reach across America Saturday night, also Ronna Boril for being on the committee that put together the program and Senator Barrasso for his speech.

 

Senator Barrasso nominated Bill Schilling for being the emcee and coordinator for Mike Enzy’s Invention Convention on Saturday.

 

Richard Schwahn nominated Jim Beck for donating UW tickets for the auction today.

 

We inducted three new members into the club today, Taylor Schwahn, sponsored by his dad Richard Schwahn; Miamie Sleep and Chstidy Greenwood, sponsored by Carley Applegate. Welcome to the club!

 

Monika Ratliff received her red badge today.

 

President Dick Jay announced that for those bringing guests with the intent of them becoming members of the club that after the first or second time bringing them the club will not continue to charge you for the meal of the guest. Also when they have put in their application they can continue to come without being charged until they actually become a member of the club.

 

Lisa Scroggins announced that the Centennial Committee needs our help in gathering any photos of Rotary in action over the years, please let her know and get them to her along with notes on who is in the picture and what was happening. If they are not digital she can scan them in and return them to you.

 

Dave McNulty put in a plug for literacy, he is looking for projects that the club can do that focus on literacy, of any kind, finance literacy or any type of literacy.

 

Richard Schwahn reminded us about tracking your acts of service in your journals. He then had Kyle Gamroth come up and auction off the items for our fundraising for Polio awareness month. Thank you to all who participated in the auction and raised almost $400 today.

 

President Elect John Griffith introduced Micah Rush, a local climber and firefighter. Micah had some great pictures of many climbing trips he had that gave many of us vertigo just looking at the slides. Micah grew up and started climbing in Wyoming. After School he and his friends travelled around WY climbing any mountain they could find. Then he started traveling international and climbing mountains all over the world. However he loves coming back to Wyoming as we have some amazing places to climb. He met his wife Kelly, who is also a climber and she accompanied him all over the world even to Thailand where they were able to see a tsunami first hand. They got in to Ultra running in order to help them stay in shape for the climbing. Some amazing climbs he has done, sniper challenges, climbing challenges, a lot of great athletic things. He loves to get his kids out to climb and hike as well. He ran a climbing gym here in town for a while then sold that and went to firefighting and guiding. With firefighting he trained other firefighters with rescue and climbing for rescue missions even working with helicopters. He helped develop some rescue programs in Canada for the search and rescue units there. Then he started having kids so he settled down a little but teaches his kids how to climb. He trained and tested to become an international certified guide which normally takes 10 years and most don’t pass but he did it in three years. He then started up a company to train rescuers for different companies and countries. Mark Jenkins from National Geographic contacted him and talked to him about climbing in Egypt on the Sinai Peninsula and so they started researching Egypt and planning the trip to go climb the mountains there. He gave us a little history on Egypt and encouraged us all to learn more about it as it was very fascinating things to learn. He and Mark grabbed a couple of additional guys to go along with them to Egypt, one being a photographer and videographer. There will be a spread coming out in National Geographic as well as in a climbing magazine and he will let us know when those come out if we want to check them out. First they stopped to check out the pyramids outside of Cairo and learned more history about the pyramids, the Sphynx, and the slaves that built them. They also visited some of the over 1,000 Mosques in Cairo and along the way they discovered that Cairo is a big dirty city so they did not want to stay for long. They rented a van and drove to the area south of Cairo where they wanted to go climbing thinking it would be a great adventure. They got to the Bedouin town of Saint Catherine late in the evening and scoped out some of the mountains they wanted to climb in preparation for the next day. They went to the bed and breakfast and started preparing the gear for the next day. The next day they started their climbs, some of them were very difficult even for them. They would pass through villages and were greeted by everyone as they entered the villages. They found some more great places to climb doing free climbing techniques with very little gear. They went out to the desert with a guide and camels to get to more climbing areas. They met a lot of very interesting people. They found a two thousand foot wall to climb so they would climb different walls and exploring. They had some amazing climbs while there. They also spent an extra 10 days traveling into other countries learning more about the area. They were stopped and investigated for being spies because they had cameras and drones with cameras, thankfully they were able to finally speak to someone in charge and explain what they were doing and they were finally released. He will be speaking at the College in about a month and said he will let us know when so that if anyone wants they can go and see the entire program instead of the condensed version we got.

 

President Dick Jay concluded the meeting at 1:33 letting us know that next week we will be back at the Ramkota. Our speaker will be Kiana Smith, a former Exchange student.

“Be the Inspiration”