President Jim Ruble called the meeting to order promptly at 12:29, with the ring of the bell and welcomed everyone to today’s meeting.

Peaches Lynch and Tim Anderson were the greeters today, and Peaches introduced the members who brought guests:

Susan Griffith led us in singing “God Bless America”.

 

Phillip Giffin gave us his classification talk today; he is a senior engineer with Morrison Maierle here in Casper. He told us some about the company where he works. He chose engineering as he likes the service aspect of helping others through his engineering. He chose to work with Morrison Maierle because of the way they do business and serve the communities they are in. He and his wife are both Wyoming natives and are loving being in Casper. His wife is a CPA for Chemical Resources here in Casper. He loves to fish and hunt as well as Bob Ross painting. They will celebrate their 32^nd anniversary in April. They have three children who are spread out to Gillette and Wisconsin as well as one in Laramie at UW. He was very pleased when Lisa Hubbard invited him to Rotary as it fits in well with his life and what he has always focused on with “service above self”.

We had two Paul Harris awards today Dennis Sun (PH) and Mike Ward (PH + 5).

Sheryl Foland told us that Bert Towes Broke his shoulder and will be out for a while.

Kevin Murphy told us that John Wold passed away at the age of 100 last night, a long time friend of Rotary.

President Jim nominated Susan Griffith for leading the song today;

Susan Griffith nominated the Interact students from Roosevelt who took Valentine’s Day gifts to some children at the Mission.

 

Wayne Heili told us more about the centennial clock project that the Five Trails club has put together and he thanked the donors from our club and presented them with a miniature of the clock that will be placed at the David Street Station. Jason DeWitt, Tom Thorson, Charles Schoenwolf, Charlie Shopp and his wife, Richard Schwahn, Liz Becher, Dave True, Jim Ruble through Sinclair, and Dave and Helen Bishop. The clock will be installed in May and Steve Loftin and Randy Hein will be helping with the project.

PE Richard Schwahn introduced our speaker today, Anna Wilcox, the Executive Director of the Wyoming Eclipse Festival. Every 18 months a lot of people gear up to watch the solar eclipse, this one coming in August is special though because it will be the most viewed eclipse in history. Monday August 21^st will be the eclipse and the path of totality spreads right across the United States with 12.12 million living in the path, 42 million living within 100 miles of the path and 88 million living within 200 miles of the path and 127 million within 300 miles. That means that about 39% of the U.S. population is able to hop in the car and go into the path of totality to observe this event. The big question is though, how many of them will do that? Casper is dead center of the path and about 135,000 people in Wyoming live in that path which is about 25% of the state’s population. About 4 to 5 years ago they started looking at the 14 States and some 100+ cities in the path to determine the best place to view the eclipse. They based this on low light, accessibility, infrastructure in the community, mobility, length of totality, and the greatest percentage of clear skies reported historically. Out of all of the places in the path of totality Casper was named number three. Since the preparation has begun many are saying that Casper is number one based on the planning and preparation going on. The number one and two positions were a town in Oregon and Idaho Falls. Anna put up the eclipse by the numbers for us with the following information: 39- number of years since the last eclipse was visible in the contiguous U.S.; 181 – days until the eclipse, 2600 - hotel rooms booked for the event out of 2700 available in Casper and they are going for $750/night with a five night minimum stay, $1300 – the highest amount paid for a hotel room in Casper with at least 20 rooms costing that amount, 450 – average number of visitor inquiries per month, 30 – number of events currently planned for the event which includes our Duck Derby, 35,000 – number of visitors expected to be formally accommodated in Natrona County for the event and this number may be higher and along with his there will probably be even more people just coming in on that Monday just for the eclipse. At 10:22 a.m. on Monday will be the time of first contact where the Moon first touches the edge with the sun. For the next 80 minutes we will watch the moon slowly pass in front of the sun then at 11:42:42 a.m. we will hit totality where the sun is completely covered for two minutes and 26 seconds; so all of this money spent to see totality for two minutes and 26 seconds. There are people that spend 18 months planning and saving just to go to the next eclipse and spend all of their money on that one event. There is a documentary show that talks about these people and shows their experiences chasing eclipses, it is called Chasing Shadows. There are so many people that will be coming from all over the world and they are looking forward to all of the experiences associated with the chase not just seeing the eclipse. Casper is in the spotlight and people all over the world will be experiencing a live stream of the eclipse from Casper WY and during this live feed they will be showing clips of all of the many things that were experienced during this weekend so that will really highlight our city for the world. Also many other communities have reached out to Casper for help with the organization and preparing for this weekend. NASA just requested our emergency response plan and have put it on their website to share with other cities along the path. They have focused on the entire community and established ways to communicate and help everyone prepare for this huge event. One of the main goals is to make sure everyone is as prepared as possible so that this will be a very successful event for everyone. They are planning more workshops and round tables to help prepare everyone over the next six months. They will have more workshops for those who want to do Air BNB to make money from renting out their homes or rooms in their homes. They will continue to engage the community and get people together as well as continue to inform and promote the community. Anna encouraged us to put our best foot forward and participate in all of the activities we possibly can. Enjoy the visitors; show them all of the great things our community has to offer. Anywhere in Casper will be a good spot to see the eclipse so they encourage everyone to take the time to plan and enjoy the event, watch it from your house. 

 

 

President Jim concluded the meeting at 1:30; letting us know that next week we are back at the Parkway Plaza. Our program will be Joy from the athletics department at UW.