The Program from May 8th

On May 8, 2026, 3 new Sunrise members, Bonnie Landers, Richard Zeigler, and Eric Johnston, formally introduced themselves to the club by giving their craft talks. New members Bonnie, Richard, and Eric are amazingly articulate and accomplished, and we are very lucky to have them.

Bonnie joined the club in November. She was born in Keene, New Hampshire, a town of about 22,000 people. It was a wonderful place to grow up. Her high school teacher talked her out of attending the local university and convinced her to apply to schools she couldn’t afford, like Harvard. The town rallied behind her and many community organizations, including Rotary clubs, helped her to finance her Harvard education. Following graduation, she received a Rotary International Fellowship and studied international relations at the University of Dijon in France’s Loire Valley. The RI Fellowship was instrumental to her career because after receiving her master’s degree she applied for and received a Chase Manhattan international training position in Paris, in part because of her experience at the University of Dijon! This led Bonnie to a 40-year career working all over the world! Rotary changes lives.

Richard joined Sunrise in April this year and had previously been a member of a Rotary club in Palau, where he lived and worked for over 10 years! Richard was born and raised in Santa Rosa. He attended El Molino High School and SRJC. He started taking piano lessons at age 4 or 5! He studied piano pedagogy at Chico State and then moved to Los Angeles to attend the California Institute of the Arts and received a master’s degree in jazz piano! He is still very involved with piano and still loves his jazz! His professional music career was cut short when he and his wife were expecting a baby and he decided to make a more dependable living as a mortgage underwriter in the LA area. He did play with some musical luminaries, however, including Mariah Carey! The brutal LA commute eventually led him to move to Palau, his wife’s native country. Richard moved back to Santa Rosa in 2017 and is currently the Account Wire Services Manager at Redwood Credit Union.

Eric Johnson joined the club in May 2024. He has been in journalism and newspaper publishing for 36 years. His most recent position as CEO of Sonoma Media Investments ended this month when the company was sold to a new owner. As CEO, he managed seven community publications, including the Press Democrat, the North Bay Business Journal, and Sonoma Magazine. Eric got his start in journalism when he told his high school guidance counselor that he wanted to be a scientist. The counselor told him that “you stink at math” and asked him what he really likes to do. Eric told her that he liked his academic journalism class and loved writing stories and, especially, taking photos. He’s been a journalist ever since! Eric think’s his career can be condensed into a simple concept: creation and solution. He gave various examples of how throughout his career he was able to identify a problem and create a solution. For example, when working in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, James Mitchener’s birthplace, he found an old video of Mitchener and developed a way to turn that grainy video into something that could be posted online. Later, when working in Modesto, during the media frenzy created by the Lacey and Scott Petterson case, he found way to create a paywall so they could limit the amount of traffic coming onto the company’s site. When he came to the Press Democrat 2 ½ years ago, he found a newsroom that was in some respects like stepping into a 1995 newspaper. His goal was to modernize the operation so that it could stay competitive and relevant for another 5 or 10 years or more. He saw the problems and helped create the solutions that he thinks will help the paper remain competitive and keep the community engaged. Eric and his wife hope to stay in Sonoma County; we hope they do.

Click HERE for a limited time recording of these amazing craft talks.