Greatest Guest Challenge Mtg Summary

Kudos to Marty Behr for orchestrating Sunrise Rotary’s first Greatest Guest Ever Meeting.  Designed to both generate interest in Sunrise Rotary and provide a premier speaker, Marty recruited noted Santa Rosa Press Democrat Columnist Chris Smith and club representatives of significant areas of service to highlight their focus.
 
Chris Smith alone would have been a home run. Comfortable talking with personalities of screen or a down-and-outer under a bridge, Chris’s candid, personal vignettes of 8 local and international luminaries gave fuller, richer portraits of Charles (Peanuts) Schulz, Ruth Payne who befriended Marina (Mrs. Lee Harvey) Oswald, Film Master Alfred Hitchcock, America’s most under-rated actor Fred MacMurray, early Santa Rosa Developer Hugh Codding, Comedian & winemaker Tommy Smothers, persistent presidential candidate as well as Smother’s Bros co-star Pat Paulson, and a literally heart warming account of  current local Developer Ken Keegan’s encounter with the parents of his heart transplant donor.

Yes, Chris' repertoire of famous and fabulous is far reaching.
 
If you would like to start a conversation to explore the backstory of these, ask a member who attended what Remick Ridge is, or the title of the first local movie by the director of 1962 thriller “The Birds”?  What was Fred MacMurray beloved by theater concessionaires for? What day of the week did Hugh Codding connect Montgomery Village to City sewers?  What was one of Pat Paulson’s repeated campaign slogans …”yours!” ?
 
Chris let us know how important timing is in one’s career:  His foot in the door in North Bay Journalism came in 1971 in Gualala.  Just happened their weekly paper had a vacancy in the reporting department.  How fast could he start?  Riverside’s loss has been out gain ever since 1986.
 
In appreciation of Chris’ contribution to Santa Rosa-Sonoma County’s spirit of community, Sunrise Rotary Historian Dave Lorenzen and Jon Stark, the Club’s Former Rotary Foundation Director presented Chris his Paul Harris Fellow recognition pin and plaque.