Your Weekly  Get Up & Go Has Been Updated

 

As we Marched into this mid-April morning, many of us May have missed the perfect song selections of our own Dave Morse.  Playing first “That’s what Friends are For” and then “Taxman.”  Unfortunately, we too often don’t notice Dave’s careful and timely choices at that magical keyboard!

 

After President Rose Cholewinski rang us to a start, Chuck Snipes led our lusty renditions of “Smile” and “America the Beautiful” before Rose’s weekly quest for Visiting Rotarians (VR’s).  Jack Latow promptly introduced semi-VR Anh Tran, representing our own Rotaract Club.  Anh took a few minutes to notify us of the upcoming 7^th Annual “Baby Big Night City of Stars” charity dinner.  This May 4 event (Saturday night from 6-9) features food, entertainment, a silent auction, and a raffle with all funds aimed at Rotaract’s Pod project in Brazil.  The $45 “pre-sale” ticket price ends 4/23.  Rose’s subsequent search for visitors netted only Greg Favre, introduced by Bill Kopper as today’s speaker.

 

On to Announcements!  First came Chuck Snipes, assessing interest in a 2019 brew-fest for this year’s Ribs and Rotary event. Will Portello, Keith Watenapugh, and Tim Daleiden expressed interest. With these powerhouse Rotarians aboard, the odds favor a successful Suds-werk!  Larry Greene, in a semi-announcement, congratulated big winner Gary Johns- and what were the odds of the same person winning both men’s and women’s prizes in our March Madness fundraiser?  Super-statistician Bruce Wolk claimed this likelihood was 1 in 4352 (64 times 68) but many of us felt our personal odds of pulling this off were much lower.

 

Kristen Shepard said she hoped to help organize a junior version of Camp Royal,  and that we hoped to send  two people to Camp Royal being held in Colorado in July and August.  Presumably these will be round-trips! Stay tuned.

 

Also a “semi-announcement” was news that Rose, Tim Daleiden, Ken Firestein, John Youmans, and Brody Hamilton attended the District Assembly last week, where our own omnipotent Gretchen Peralta serves on the district board.  Rose then made an offering for Sunrise Rotarians to donate to a graduation fund before asking for a “4-way test-certified” show of hands:  “Who’s wearing a Rotary pin?”  More than half those present claimed to be “wearing” this Friday morn’.  Did Rose just disarm the Sergeant-of-the-week?

 

In a final announcement, Larry Olsen reminded us that next Thursday is the date for our fifth annual Jay Gerber Young Community Leader Award night.  Steven Willhoff will receive the award at the U. S. Bicycling Hall of Fame, 303 Third St. in Davis, where the event begins at 5:30 p.m.

 

 

Next came Nancy Storm’s “turn to tell all in two minutes” on the In Pro Per stage.  Nancy’s script said she was born in Santa Monica and graduated with the Palisades High School Class of ’71.  She wisely headed north to college at San Francisco State before transferring to Sonoma State.  She came to Davis from Santa Barbara with her first husband and soon met Larry Olsen, who attended high school with her college boyfriend (presumably before college).   Nancy became a Sunrise Rotarian in 1995, in part because she won that cute Rotary playhouse we built about a century ago. (She bought the raffle tickets from John Youmans). She married husband Todd in ’99.  Nancy is President of the Friends of Yolo Crisis Nursery and noted (can this be right?) the $90,000 proceeds from their recent crab feed.  Despite (or “to spite”?) Todd, Nancy doesn’t fish or go to Raiders games.  Thanks Nancy, for telling your story and for all your dedicated service to Rotary.  (She didn’t mention all the time she has spent nurturing our student exchange programs.)

 

Next, Dennis Lindsay, our Sergeant of-the-Day, strode forward with a copy of the Sacramento Bee in hand, presumably in recognition of our soon-to be re-introduced speaker.  Before Happy Bucks, Dennis targeted Larry Greene, wondering whether he and Gary Johns had a “private deal” for the March Madness proceeds.   (Larry, of course, denied all, but we heard no such disclaimer from Gary.)   Somehow Sarge Dennis then digressed to asking Larry why he wasn’t sitting with the “new knee” folks at the northeast corner of the room; most of the crowd had no idea that we had bionic Rotarians clustered there.  Should we have heard their “knees a-knockin”?

 

Happy Bucks brought out the multitudes: 

 

In a fine and final “not happy bucks” flurry, Dennis scoured his Bee, found lots of too-late Kings news in the sports section, then noted the major story that Kim Kardasian West, who has never taken a law course, is planning to sit for the California bar exam in 2022.   What a great opportunity to fine our many attorneys (too many for a slow reporter to name) $5 each! 

 

As our exhausted sergeant retired, it was time for Bill Kopper to introduce Greg Favre as our speaker.  Greg served as Executive Editor of The Sacramento Bee from 1984 to 1998.  More recently, in 2015 he became founding editor of CALmatters, a non-profit next- generation journalism venture headquartered in Sacramento. 

 

Greg began by giving us a taste of his history (“his-story”?) as a journalist, beginning with his role as assistant sports editor at the Atlanta Journal.  After a stint as press secretary to a Georgia congressman, Greg became (this from an online article): managing editor at the Dayton Daily News; editor of the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post; editor of the Daytona Beach News-Journal; news director at WPLG-TV in Miami; editor of the Corpus Christi Caller-Times; and managing editor of the Chicago Daily News and the Chicago Sun-Times- all these before joining the Sacramento Bee in 1984.

 

In a stirring and well-scripted presentation, Greg noted the extreme changes going on in journalism, and the strained “fake news” environment in which journalists now work. He noted that we are living in a time when verbal interchanges of nasty names and labeling have led to an absolute “absence of grace.”  This trend has been significantly aided by the onslaught of social media.  Emphasizing the greater-than-ever need for journalists who want to make of difference, he noted the roles of past presidents Lincoln, Roosevelt, Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton in promoting open public discourse and respect for the free press.

 

Today, Greg sees us increasingly divided into “tribes staring across self-drawn lines.” We often wake to echoes of violence; he rattled off a long series of recent and familiar tragedies.  Journalists are now often targeted; but as a society we seem to be growing callous to these events; as Walter Lippman said, “When everything is dramatic, nothing is.”  Greg noted that in recent decades 1300 journalists have been killed, and 90% of their killers have gone unpunished.  In a recent poll, 29% of Americans said they believe that journalists are “the enemies of the people.”

 

At this point Greg told of his personal heroes: His dad who, without relevant experience, bought a newspaper that no one else would, then worked hard to keep it on track; Gene Patterson, a prize-winning editor and war hero.  Back on 9/16/63, when four African-American kids were murdered in an Alabama hate crime; Gene wrote a column “A Flower for the Graves” that Greg read to us in its entirety, finishing by noting that Walter Cronkite heard of Gene’s column and read it on the national news, moving the needle on civil rights. 

 

Continuing the positive, Greg noted the apolitical outpouring of love and assistance in response to Katrina, when so many came to help; we were all neighbors regardless of politics, and he believes we can again carve out a place of compassion and caring, a “coalition of conscience” to help form a “more perfect union.” At the end of this stirring and inspirational presentation, most of us gave Greg a well-deserved standing ovation.

 

Q&A followed (abbreviated notes here):

 

 

 

 

With time expired, Rose orchestrated the book signing, before Joe Uzarski’s ticket #919 emerged in the Draw of the Day.  Sadly, Joe’s 8 of clubs only earned him a free breakfast, instead of the $237 pot; but how did it grow so big so fast, after Bud won it last week?

 

Why was there no plug for Picnic Day?  No first pitch last week, no picnic pitch today, are we getting old?