Our meeting today began with Arnold calling the meeting to order and then Dave Hartman gave the invocation, followed by Pledge and song (Auld Lang Syne) lead by Stacie Cook.
Visitors and guests were introduced by Lisa Stephens-Musick. They included Lisa’s grandson and prospective new member, Bryson Whittaker, as well as Kenny Weeks (by John Deason), Tina Row and Melissa Walker (by Noel Filer) and Vonda Keel (by Carla Dowlen). Lisa then recognized our January birthdays which included Monica Horton (January 3rd), Josh Phillips (January 5th), and Sheldon Wang (January 6th).
Our sunshine report included special prayer requests for John Deason as he prepares for another surgery scheduled to take place on Monday, January 9th. Our thoughts and prayers are with John for a successful procedure and rapid healing.
Stacie Cook circulated our Brag Bucket among members. Tommy Richardson proudly wore TCU’s purple today and donated in honor of their upcoming appearance in the NCAA National Championship football game against Georgia next Monday night. Josh Phillips then donated and bragged about his son who just started his new job at Price-Waterhouse. Congrats and good luck to both! Our Member Spotlight was focused today on Jeremy Woodward (with FirstBank) who shared his story with us.
Dave Hartman introduced our extremely topical and important program today about the deadly drug, Fentanyl. We were privileged to have Wichita County District Attorney, John Gillespie, as well as Assistant District Attorney, Dobie Kosub, share their expertise about the Fentanyl crisis in Wichita County, and what they are doing to fight the Fentanyl battle.
Fentanyl, although a well-known and routinely used pain killer in daily surgical procedures throughout the world, has come onto Wichita County’s “radar screen” in just the past three years or so as a deadly, easily counterfeited and rapidly spreading drug in our community.
Fentanyl is a fast growing part of the overall opioid epidemic, cheap and easy to produce, and is 100 times stronger than morphine! From a prosecutorial standpoint, John and Dobie are vigorously attacking the Fentanyl epidemic in Wichita County. They are finding ways to not only aggressively prosecute those who are circulating the drug in our community (and literally killing our children), but they are also making a strong effort to educate our citizens and create awareness about this truly horrific and deadly drug. John told us about an incident where one pill was split three ways. That pill almost killed two and did kill one.
We thank John and Dobie for their commitment and focus on the Fentanyl epidemic, and we will muster all the support we can as a community to fight it.
Our speaker’s gift book in honor of John and Dobie will be given to Barwise Middle School. We closed out our meeting as always with the Four Way Test.