Greeter: Jean-Luc Slagle

Invocation: Juan Bustamante

Flag Salute: Kamal Bhakta

Roving Mic: Jacob Frost

Song: None!

SPOKE EDITOR PROFILE:

Jorge Barrientos is the director of marketing and public relations at Law Office of Chain | Cohn | Clark. He serves on board of directors for a variety of local community organizations. When he’s not working or serving our community, you can find him traveling the world and hanging with his family, which includes wife Carla, 7-year-old son Julian, 5-year-old daughter Gianna Sol.

GUESTS:

• Mike Allen (Patrick Beck) from American General Media
• Debbie Bowman (Amy Travis) from SBI Parking Lot & Highway Improvement
• Kristin Warner (Vernon Harper) from CSU Bakersfield, Deputy Chief of Staff
• Griselda Moon (Amy Travis), Medical Office Manager and Marketing Consultant
• Zanele Abraham Matome (Jason Cater), founder of Welo Health Inc.

• Susan McCoy (Mike McCoy), retired from Bakersfield City School District (Franklin Elementary)

   

GOOD NEWS & ANNOUNCEMENTS:

• 'Cause she’s the taxwoman ♫

Yeah, she’s the taxwoman ♫

This week we played “Top That Toni Tax®!”

• Shannon LeBare’s Toni Tax® was jam and a special rock from Montana
• Sarah Haggard’s tax was a Rotary logo car emblem
• Patrick Beck’s tax was a cowboy boots keychain
• Kristen Watson’s tax was whiskey from Tennessee and brown butter from Paso Robles
• Jason Cater’s tax was shot glasses and other souvenirs from New York City
• Vernon Harper’s tax was courtside seats to a CSU Bakersfield basketball game
• Justin Salter’s tax was tea and treats from Amsterdam and Harrods
• Kamal Bhakta’s tax was candy from Banff, Canada
• Jorge Barrientos’ tax was a local candle and honey from Carpinteria
• Joe Hay’s tax was a pen and sea salt from Hawaii
• Vin Dang’s tax was a hat from “Dang Burger” from Carpinteria

• Toni Harper’s own tax/giveaway was a hat from Detroit

  Editors note: AI retail estimate for the above items is between $350 and $500.

  ________________________

• Ben Stinson shared that 500+ people will be picking up their popcorn packages from Stinson’s as part of the Scouting America popcorn sales.

• Justin Salters shared that Salty’s on Coffee near Rosedale celebrated its grand opening, with air conditioning and crushed ice.

• Ryan Crowl’s campaign kicks off for Bakersfield's Ward 4 on the City Council

• Nik Boone, too, is kicking off his campaign for Trustee Area 5 in the Norris School District

• Bill Lever was fined $100 toward CALM for not BCCing an email that went to dozens of people

• Order your very own Rotary polo at the next meeting; sign up sheet at the front desk (more Rotary pins coming soon)

• Wanted: Tracy Walker Kiser to a Rotary meeting. Reward is 3 missed meeting credits.

• Upcoming Meetings:
  • BPD Chief Brent Stratton: Aug. 20
  • Ramon Sanchez: Aug. 27
  • Ken Beurmann and Ken Keller: Sept. 3
  • Meraki Creative Works: Sept. 10
  • District Governor Margarida Eidson: Sept. 17

  • Off Site at Cal Dairies: Sept. 24

PROGRAM

Our club welcomed Rebekah Hogan, founder of MarkahVida and a certified Havening Practitioner, hypnotherapist, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) master coach, for a talk on mindset and emotional regulation. Rebekah's central theme: while knowing better means doing better, that’s not always the case, and closing that gap takes a repeatable practice. Hogan was the owner of Kwik Signs in Bakersfield for nearly 20 years. Today she splits time between Maui and Scottsdale.

She walked us through a simple framework – Align, Regulate, Release, Re-Align – for catching ourselves in the moment and choosing a response instead of a reaction.

"Every moment is an opportunity to react or respond,” she said.

Rebekah also unpacked how our minds turn brief events into long-running internal stories. As she put it, “The event lasted three seconds. The story took twenty minutes.”

She reminded us that just because a thought comes up doesn’t mean we have to believe it, change it, or let it shape the rest of our day. She walked us through the pattern of Event → What We Tell Ourselves → Emotion → New Perspective, and encouraged the group to practice coming back to how we want to feel and respond, rather than staying focused on what’s happening around us. Practices like meditation can make that easier and more natural over time.

She closed by reminding us that clarity isn’t something we figure out once and for all, it’s something we keep coming back to, and offered members a link to a meditation they can use to reconnect with what they want and the life they're building: https://qrs.ly/aghgpwj.