Jim's story for the April 5 Bulletin

It was Monday, March 29, 2021, and President Tim Hageman handed the mike over to Jason Hearne to lead the pledge and to quote George Burns saying, “When you stop giving, it’s time to turn out the lights”…..One might ask how the very young (or at least he’s enough of an athlete to look young) Jason even knows who George Burns is, but we know that if Mr. Burns ever did turn out the lights, he first said, “Say good night, Gracie”……Our guests included Manhattan Beach Mayor Suzanne Hadley and former Channel 5 news anchor, Manhattan Beach resident, and Torrance Police Department volunteer Emmett Miller……Ed Kushins brought guests from his book club to hear our speaker.

 

President Tim’s weekly video suggested an answer to the question, do you know the value of your life now?, with the answer something like, choose to see the diamond inside yourself and others……A shining diamond died this month, and we honored his passing: Bob Peterson, who enjoyed 72 years perfect attendance at Hermosa Rotary, a club he joined in 1950, just in time to be part of the founding and sponsoring of the Manhattan Beach Rotary Club.  Hermosa Rotary President Steve Peterson, Bob’s son, together with Steve’s wife Julia, joined us for the occasion.   Many who knew Bob would name him as our Rotary District’s GOAT.  

 

Membership Chair Dave Long and Sponsors Harrison Clay and Dave Gendron brought Sandesha Singh to our club, and President Tim inducted her during this meeting.  Welcome, Sandesha!

 

Clues to the identity of our Mystery Rotarian included her speaking multiple languages, graduating from three universities, and misspelling her own last name.  She never actually explained this last clue, but if you know her husband Roger (who flies model airplanes all over the world, on the U.S. team four times and the New Zealand team four times—he’s a native Kiwi and U.S. citizen), you know his last name is ever so slightly different from hers:  They are Roger Morrell and Lindy Murrell.  Anyway, she graduated from Alabama, Auburn, and USC, giving her an unusually conflicted situation during football season.  Born in Alabama, she helped oppose George Wallace’s infamous attempts to block schoolhouse doors.  She followed her first husband to Indiana, where she taught 8^th grade, followed him back to Huntsville, where they divorced, and ended up in SoCal, where she met Roger in a classroom.  They have been married 43 years.  They moved to Europe, then back to SoCal.  She has worked 40 years at CSC (Computer Sciences), including product development, systems, sales and accounting, and is now retired, getting citizenship in New Zealand and looking at six months a year in Wellington.  Roger has three kids, and Roger and Lindy have one, David, married with three kids.  She sincerely invites us to visit her in Wellington.

 

Seattle Police Detective Kim Bogucki has been with the department 32 years, but since a visit she made to a local women’s prison 13 years ago, she has devoted her off hours to the independent nonprofit she cofounded, The IF Project, so named after her key question to inmates:  If there was something someone could have said or done to change the path that led you here, what would it be?   (Through her work, President Tim got to know her.)  It has turned out that the question really triggered something in convicts, and it has led to a broad criminal justice reform agenda, rooted in the work of cops and convicts together mentoring young people.  Reform requires understanding the pathway to criminality, which, by the way, is very different for men and women.  Poverty and racism are key to all of it.  Kim reminded us that 95-97% of convicts eventually get released from custody, so we really should be looking at the pathways to criminality, in fields like education, mental health, physical health, chemical dependency, socioeconomic disparity, and more.  The #1 answer to the If question?  Lack of a positive adult role model (which prompted Ed Kushins to immediately propose that we engage in mentoring).  Kim told us, “Incarcerated people are the biggest teachers in my career.”  She called understanding convicts a true crime reduction program.

 

The Manhattan Beach Rotary Club has a long history with the Hermosa Beach Rotary Club.  They founded our club.  For countless years we enjoyed a joint clubs barbecue in their clubhouse and really got a chance to know them.  It was their example, especially that of Mick Felder and Bob Peterson, that brought about our involvement in Meals on Wheels.  They are small now but still mighty, and no one represented Rotary better than their legendary member, Bob Peterson.  If you want to offer a remembrance of Bob, you might want to send a check, even a token amount, to the Rotary Club of Hermosa Beach Foundation (hermosabeachrotary.org).  In some heavenly orchestra, Bob will be playing his French horn in gratitude.