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THE GOOD EARTH ISSUE AUGUST 24, 2024
VOL. 5 NO. 6
ESWATINI WELCOME FOR RODNEY
NEWS-NOTES-NONSENSE
Next week's Thursday gathering will be held at the Rotary pavilion in Belk Park. Take the first road to the right after you enter the park from Rock Hill Rd.
On Thursday we had the pleasure of hearing a presentation by Jessica Levan, Scott's daughter and veteran of various Rotary sponsored activities. She is currently a Soil Conservationist with the NRCS (Natural Resources Conservation Service) in the Belleville office that serves several SW Illinois counties, including MadCo. Her slide show covered the wide range of services offered by the NRCS, it's extensive. They also partner with other agencies within the Department of Agriculture as well as other federal and state organizations. She closed with a couple of ag-centric groaners.
Early arrivals included AllenH, KendraG and LoriP.
Best birthday wishes go out to TomS, tomorrow and MikeK on the 26th.
JoeS indicated that golf tournament sponsorships and team reservations are starting to trickle in. He encourage everyone to get busy encouraging your golfing/duffer friends to get a team(s) together and recruit sponsors. The end of October is not that far off.
Here are the details about our upcoming club foundation golf scramble on October 25th. Registration starts @ 11 with a shotgun start @ noon. A foursome will cost $400 and include a BBQ lunch and steak dinner. There are five sponsorship levels available from $100 to $1000. He then distributed flyers and encouraged everyone to share them with the golfers you know, friends, family and social media. It's going to be a fun day on a beautiful late October Friday. All proceeds will be used for community enhancement with a goal of making a $15,000 contribution every other year. Make checks payable to our legal name East Alton Rotary Club Foundation. All checks need to go through JoeS so that all sponsorships and teams are correctly recognized. Thanks in advance for your support.
Post-nooners included DaveA, CoryG, JoeS and ChrisH.
RodneyD has been in Eswatini the past few days trying to determine the viability of the proposed medical center project. He returns Monday.
BradP is coordinating our Soap Box Race crosswalk duties on September 7th. Two-hour shifts starting @ 9:00AM. There are still four crossing guard slots open.
Congrats to VirgilM on his 17 years of service.
As soon as Prez Bill rang the closing bell, he was off to Busch to watch the Cards beat the Brewers. What dedication, to us and the Birds.
JoeS has a great story about softball on a very hot day, water, popcorn and dentures.
The Slide Right In (SRI) buffet crowd featured-ScottL, JohnP and DaveA.
SAA Patti fined everyone who does not have a pet.
We had 17 members who dined on fish 'n chips (with corn on the cob, no peas), Hail Caesar salad and seven layer bar cake.
JohnP had two chances to find the joker and claim the $219 jackpot. It rolled. BradP won the scratch-off.
Last week 61% of Eastender subscribers opened the newsletter.
THIS IS HOW JOHN'S TICKET WAS DRAWN,TWICE!
RODNEY WITH CLUB MEMBERS
CAN WE TALK? YES!
SEE YOU HERE NEXT WEEK!
ALL THINGS TRIVIAL
Scientists discovered the source of a 6-ton stone at the center of Stonehenge (southwest England). Where's it from?
A-Ireland
B-France
C-Scotland
D-Vermont
(Answer is found near the end of the newsletter)
Today is National Peach Pie Day
Where is the largest city in the U.S. by land area?
Texas
Montana
Alaska
California
Considering Alaska covers 663,000 square miles — more than one-fifth the size of the entire contiguous U.S. — it should come as no surprise that the four largest cities in the country by land area are located in the state. The largest, Sitka, stretches 2,870 square miles, followed by Juneau (2,702 square miles), Wrangell (2,543 square miles), and Anchorage (1,705 square miles).
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
Sourced from the Make-Up and Banner newsletters
August 2016
PattiA was busy organizing a fund raising banquet that would honor Virginia Kirkpatrick with a Paul Harris Fellowship award.
EA members heard a presentation about cyber security from Jane Morris, Information Security Officer with the Bank of Edwardsville.
Frank Akers presented a program about the 1994 St. Louis Olympic Festival. ScottL was one of the local torch runners.
JeanK was thanked for her help with the Back 2 School Bash program.
21 EA members dined on Julia's buffet that featured 8 different items.
MikeK paid a Happy Fine (for his new iPhone).
RodC paid a $5 scooter fine.
ScottL offered the invocation.
WendellR updated club members about the cleft palate project in Columbia.
PaulG introduced meeting guests.
Exchange student Daniela Fuentes would be arriving on August 21st. Everyone was encouraged to gather at Lambert to welcome her.
PattiA let the $235 WR jackpot roll. SherryT and BradP did the same with the $35 EA pot.
PHOTOS OF THE WEEK
BEHIND THE BADGE
MEMBER PROFILE
MARK SPECIALE
I will start my history in August 1968 when I accepted the position of accounting clerk at a company named Beall Tool in East Alton. During the following years I held various positions including controller for twelve years. In 1983 being a young and ambitious sort | approached corporate officials in Chicago about purchasing the company and as of January 1, 1984 became the sole owner of Beall Manufacturing. Various companies and product lines were bought and sold during the next few years and Beall was sold in 2016. My last company located in McKenzie, Tennessee was sold in 2021.
In 2000 l was asked to join six others to create Partners Bank in Glen Carbon and was chairman of the loan committee during the banks existence.
I was asked by Jayne and John Simmons in 2007 to become part of the ownership group of the Southern Illinois Miners Frontier League baseball team and stadium. Being baseball fans my wife and I had a great time with this project.
My late wife Sally and I were married for 50 years and have three daughters, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
I joined the East Alton Rotary Club fifty years ago and developed lasting friendships with members of that club and the Riverbend East Rotary Club while doing the work of Rotary.
I am now retired and living the good life with my fiancé in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
AND I QUOTE
"You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing-after they've tried everything else."-Winston Churchill
"Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.”
"Once you realize that you can do something, it would be difficult to live with yourself if you didn’t do it."-James Baldwin
"Movement is the song of the body."-Vanda Scaravelli
SMILE
Let's head west and check out some recent entries from the police blotter of the Flathead County Sheriff’s and Kalispell Police departments-
6:24 a.m. Animal control officers accidentally trapped someone’s pet dog.
12:11 p.m. Someone checked out of their hotel room but left their gun behind.
3:52 p.m. Someone called 911 to express their concerns over “suspicious antics” in their neighborhood.
5:39 p.m. A dog was running through Kalispell with a chicken in its mouth being chased by the chicken’s owner.
7:24 p.m. A man driving around with his family in a van covered with Bible verses was attempting to preach the Gospel to passersby, which law enforcement noted was “strange but not criminal.”
7:38 p.m. Someone tore down all the signs advertising an upcoming garage sale.
11:32 p.m. A riderless horse was taking up the bike lane.
8:49 a.m. A man in a white tank top smoking a cigarette was running through backyards hurtling fences in Kalispell.
9:18 a.m. Some geese were blocking a roadway.
10:35 a.m. A caller was concerned about several unshorn sheep overheating.
12:38 p.m. Someone reported the theft of his handgun that he always left on the dashboard of his truck.
1:16 p.m. Someone drove up to a residence, left their truck, and stole the Mustang in the driveway.
6:23 p.m. A woman wanted to complain about the atmosphere in her neighborhood.
8:57 p.m. A man working out at the gym called 911 because a pregnant woman kept using the machines he was using.
10:32 p.m. A man punched an aggressive German Shepherd in the face.
BY THE NUMBERS
In the first quarter of 2024, the collective wealth of millennials and older Gen Z stood at $14.2 trillion, up from $4.5 trillion four years earlier-Federal Reserve
In a recent survey of U.S. consumers by Jefferies, some 51% of respondents said they are buying more private-label products to save money on grocery bills
Two-thirds of outstanding U.S. mortgages have a rate below 4%-Morgan Stanley
E-bike sales more than tripled in the U.S. between 2019 and 2023, totaling $810 million in sales last year- Circana
Less than 10% of plastic waste in the U.S. is recycled annually, according to a 2023 report from the National Academy of Sciences
The number of students in the U.S. majoring in computer and information science has jumped 40% in five years, to more than 600,000 as of 2023. The number of bachelor’s degrees conferred in those majors topped 100,000 in 2021, a 140% rise from 10 years earlier-Department of Education
(Trivia answer C)
THE OBJECT OF ROTARY
The object of Rotary is to encourage and foster the ideal of service as a basis of worthy enterprise and, in particular, to encourage and foster:
First:The development of acquaintance as an opportunity for service.
Second: High ethical standards in business and professions, the recognition of the worthiness of all useful occupations, and the dignifying of each Rotarian's occupation as an opportunity to serve society.
Third: The application of the idea of service in each Rotarian's personal business, and community life.
Fourth: The advancement of international understanding, goodwill, and peace through a world fellowship of business and professional persons united in the ideal of service.
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