President John Starnes called the meeting to order promptly at 12:24, and welcomed everyone to the club meeting at the Nic. And asked for a round of applause for Silver Fox Catering for the great meal! 

 

 

 

Greg Pope and Mary Koernig were the greeters today, and Mary introduced the members who brought guests:

 

Dennis Lower cracked us up with a couple of jokes, and then Gary Pehrson asked us to “please rise” and led us in singing “America the Beautiful” (A Capella since we still do not have a pianist, hint hint).

 

We had a red badge traded in for a blue badge today, Grant Stumbaugh. Congratulations Grant!

Deanna Frey was inducted as a new member today, her sponsor is Martha Rakestraw, welcome aboard Deanna.

 

Jack Swanson said that the Children’s Choral was in Seattle, his daughter sings with them as do other members children, they received a standing ovation for their performance.

Bill Devore and Darren Gruner had children in the All State Skiing championships this past weekend.

Don Harris let us know that his memory of the Nic was when it was Casper Lumber and caught fire.

 

Brown Ewing nominated Susie McMurry for donating two buses for the Children’s Chorale to make it to Denver so they could fly to Seattle.

Brian Deurloo nominated Lori Klatt for lining up the Silver Fox for doing the catering today.

Peaches Lynch nominated our exchange student Elise because she made it to the meeting despite her skiing injury from Jackson over the weekend.

 

Two students from KWHS were introduced to the club today and shared their stories and aspirations. Trey Jennings and Andee Wilcox are two great young people who both participate in track and have great plans for their future.  

 

Darren Divine introduced himself to club members. Darren was chosen last year to be the new President of Casper College and has been in that position since July 2015. Before coming to Casper he was in Las Vegas for the past 15 years. He is a wildlife biologist, received his bachelor’s degree in that from the University of New Mexico then went to New Mexico State for his Master’s degree and for his Master’s thesis he worked on the White Sands Missile Base managing the wildlife and while there got to see some really neat things while they were testing missiles. After that he went to the University of Nevada Las Vegas for his Doctorate and worked at Mr. Kaiser’s closed mine out in California where he got to see some more interesting things. He worked on a project where a company wanted to turn the mine into a landfill so he did a study on the Bighorn Sheep to see how the project would affect them. He then ended up in education and would be happy to tell anyone that story if they are interested. He said that it is just him and his wife, no children, and they absolutely love Casper and the College.

 

 

PE Jim Ruble introduced the program.  Our very own Mary Koernig, Executive Director of The Nic, had us all here at the Nic for our meeting and she presented us a program about what is happening at The Nic now. First off she acknowledged the Board Chair for the Board of directors at the Nic, our very own John Griffith and another board member Rosalind Grenfell. She then asked all Rotarians who have served on the board in the past to please stand, there were quite a few. She said that they are striving to create real relationships with the board members, sponsors, donors and members. To celebrate tax day they will have a celebration on April 15^th at 6:00 to celebrate four great artists and we are all invited. Currently they are completely reworking their website to make it more inviting and easier to navigate. The new website will be mobile friendly and will be ready in April. There will be a member’s only portal where members will be able to register for events and pay dues online to make it much better. They have a goal to become self-sustaining and to create more income for the museum. They are going to start renting the museum out for special events as a way to bring in more revenue. They are spending time looking at what other museums are doing to get new ideas for the Nic. One of those ideas that they are going to try this year is to ask the guests who come to Nicfest for a suggested donation of $5 which will get them a wristband and they are going to ask the downtown merchants to create a special offer for anyone with a wristband that visits their stores. Then for the whole month of the Nicfest The Nic will advertise those businesses to help push more business downtown and to help create more excitement for the Nicfest which will hopefully make the Nicfest pay for itself and help the downtown businesses too. The fall art show and auction will be September 9^th and they are planning some great improvements so stay tuned to that. On each table they placed the Nic’s new magazine, Mosaic, that they print twice a year to allow the people to see what is happening and upcoming events. Currently what is on display is the photography of Chuck Kimmerle called the naked landscape, where he tries to capture the essence of the Wyoming landscape. In the other galleries are, “from the outside looking in” an exhibit by Patricia Aaron and Alicia McKim, also three exhibits that are up all of the time but the artwork changes. The first of the three is an exhibit of the European Masters from the private collection of The Nic. The next one is where they feature the artwork of Conrad Schwiering with his Wyoming Landscapes; the current ones are called “Colorful Characters” portraits he did while in New York. The third gallery is Western Masters with all artists from the Western History, paintings and sculptures. In the other galleries is an exhibit called “meditation and reflection” which is an exhibit by an artist out of Billings Montana named Candace Forrette. She is a ceramicist and has designed an installation art exhibit that she instructs the gallery on how to exactly install it in order to show what she wanted to display. Mary told us that the budget annually is about $1.3 Million. John Griffith then told us that Mary is doing a great job and he is really excited to see where she will be taking The Nic in the future. Mary added that she too really loves Casper and how friendly the people are and how easy it is to make friends and connections.

 

PE Jim Ruble announced that next week we will meet at the Parkway Plaza and the program will feature several speakers from the Central Wyoming Counseling Center. President John adjourned the meeting at 1:18 p.m.