President Arnold Oliver rang the bell and started the meeting at 12:03 pm. David Hartman led the invocation with a heartfelt prayer. After The Pledge of Allegiance, Stacie Cook led the club in Edelweiss. I can’t hear Edelweiss without thinking of Rotarian Ben Shelton. After singing a favorite song of Ben’s, we greeted each other with warmth and enthusiasm.
Carol Murray introduced her guest, Pamela Leonardi, a realtor in Wichita Falls and David Kelley introduced his guest, Debra Kelley, his wife.
We had no birthdays to celebrate this week.
John Deason continues his chemotherapy on Thursdays. This writer, Walter Coppage, is getting a hip replacement on Monday morning. If you know of any others in need of prayers, please let Tina know.
Our Annual Party is Thursday, June 29, 2023. Details to come.
Flag Team captains will meet after the meeting today with Benay Ayers to discuss the new computer flag program.
For our brag bucket we continue to celebrate. Will Goodner’s son and daughters continue to either score a hat trick in soccer or graduate in the top 10% of high school graduates. Greg Brownfield’s son is graduating from WFHS and is on the baseball team that is still in the playoffs. The Coyotes have gone further this year in the playoffs than any team since 1957. Shirley Craft talked of making 2023’s Veterans Day even more special than last year.
Mike Saville introduced the Youth of the Month, Macie Stouard. Mike compared talking to the finalists for Youth of the Month as an experience that is better than the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books. Macie has been a member of the Southeast Branch of the Boys and Girls Clubs for six years. She takes care of four horses and 2 dogs among her “chores” at home. She has perfect attendance at school and hopes to go into veterinary medicine or cosmetology. Macie has a contagious laugh. She is an excellent example of the youth of today.
Dave Hartman introduced Dr. Keith Lamb, Acting President of Midwestern State University. Dr. Lamb, a native of Vernon, Texas discussed Midwestern State University and spoke about so many things that it was hard to keep up. It was asked if he had applied for the position that he is holding on an interim basis, but that was not to be discussed. In this writer’s opinion, holding a BBA and MBA from Texas Tech University and a PH.D. from the University of North Texas combined with 23 years of service to Midwestern State University will be hard for someone else to top, but I’m not on the search committee.
Dr. Lamb said that “To grow is to change”, and Midwestern State University has done that since its founding in 1922 as Wichita Falls Junior College. MSU has about 5,800 students, with 1/3 coming from Region 9, 1/3 coming from the DFW metroplex and the last 1/3 coming from 44 different states and 55 different countries. 9% of MSU’s students are international. He spoke of The Priddy Foundation Scholars program in which 53% of the students are first generation college students. Dr. Lamb spoke of MSU’s Core Values. Leaders Drive Values. Values Drive Behavior. Behavior Drives Culture. Culture Drives Performance. Wichita Falls is lucky to have Midwestern State University. MSU and Sheppard Air Force Base work together to bring students from both MSU and SAFB together to build up not only MSU, but Wichita Falls and SAFB. Midwestern State University contributes $320 million to the local economy. The possibility of MSU having an Electrical Engineering department to add to the McCoy School of Engineering would be a tremendous plus for MSU and SAFB and Wichita Falls. MSU sports is also possibly expanding by adding baseball. As an alumnus of Midwestern State University, I am proud of the impact that MSU makes to students, our city, our state, our country, and the world. Thanks to Dr. Keith Lamb for his talk today.
The speaker’s gift will be a book donated to the library at City View High School.
After the Rotary 4 Way Test, President Arnold adjourned the meeting at 1:00 pm.