The Demotion of President Ray Watson was hosted by past president, Steve Roach. Steve Sanders wrote the skit and Mike Willis helped with the visuals. The theme was 70's hit game show, The Hollywood Squares. In this case, it was the failed follow-up, The Rotary Squares, hosted by the dashing and always charming, Jim Damian.
The motley crew on the panel featured the following:
The hilarious invocation was courtesy of Win Eaton. Steve Roach requested a photoshopped image of Win meeting with Gandhi to work on some immigration issues he was having. "Preferably sitting at a desk" was his further instructions. "Oh, sure, let me just whip that up" I replied sarcastically.
Ray Karpe was supposed to do the flag salute, but he was at a Trump rally somewhere in the midwest. Seriously though, they have the same face, don't they?
Garro Ellis led the song "Happy Trails" with the late Dale Evans as his spirit guide.
The program moved along at a brisk pace until Pat Collins (drinking from a flask) went off script and almost ground the production to a halt.
My fondest recollection of Ray's tenure was that Ray gave absolutely no thought to the speaker gift. It’s like when you realize you have a birthday party to go to and you go to Vons and buy a gift card for (pause) TGI Fridays. You don’t even bother to get a birthday card to put it in. It’s like “I was gonna take you to lunch for your birthday, but that sounded like WAY too much trouble, so here’s a gift card that’ll get ya a burger and a coke at TGI Fridays, I think there’s one in Fresno". THEN, you reach in your pocket to retrieve it and realize you left it in your car.
I kid, of course, Ray did an exceptional job and he will be missed. We're looking forward to some new blood. Can't wait to see what Garro's got cooking.
Some of the slides used during the show:
Revolutionary Baby Ray plotting the take over of the US.
Ray's brush with fame, narrowly missing out as a cast member for Welcome Back Kotter.
Ray and his brother, members of the Hells Angels.
Something about Ray vacationing at a nudist colony. The Photoshop challenge here was removing his bright red board shorts.
Other photo highlights:
