March 26, 2026 Notes by Noros Martin
Today’s meeting of The Rotary Club of Wichita Falls was called to order with a loud gong of the bell by President Cara at 12:02pm. We all rose from our chairs after having a wonderful lunch prepared by The Orchard. Thank you to The Orchard for all the great food and services they give to our club each and every Thursday.
Our very own spiritual leader, David Hartman, led us in prayer on this beautiful Thursday afternoon. Thank you, David, for blessing today.
David Spencer followed David with our Pledge and Song. It was observed, by this writer, that we pledged better than we sang today. We tried to sing or hum along to, “You are a Grand Old Flag.”
We were glad to have several guests today at our meeting. Thank you to the guests for being a part of our Rotary meeting today. We hope they will come back again. They will always be welcome at our meetings.
President Cara made some comments regarding last week’s program and the hard work the Program Committee does to bring good programs to our club.
Cara also told us about an invitation to Bourbon Tasting fund raiser hosted by the Red River Rotary Club in Gainesville, TX. The date of this event is: April 9, 2026 at 5:30pm.
Cara reminded us Pauli, our International Exchange student, would like to earn some money to help pay some of her expenses for the upcoming trip to Washington DC.
In closing, Cara reminded us of the upcoming Rotary training meeting in Arlington, TX on April 19, 2026.
Noros passed the brag bucket around the room for those who had brags, so they could let it be known. Thanks to all for sharing the great information about who is doing well. I hope they all keep up the great work.
Benay Ayers came to the podium to introduce our program and speaker for our meeting today. She introduced Dr. Blake Avera, Ophthalmologist and Author, as our speaker. Dr. Avera told us about his book, “The End of Play.” It is about a 19yr old boy, Tom Harrison, who grew up in a west Texas town and served in the Vietnam war. Tom served in the Army as a Long Range Recon Officer. Dr. Avera’s book tells us about this young man that came back to the U.S. from Vietnam to a country he did not understand. The book expands on why many people could not understand why we were in Vietnam for many years. A war that could never be won. Over 58,000 troops died in this war and even today the rate of suicides for those who served has increased by 16.7% since 2010. Thank you, Dr. Avera, for telling us about your book, “The End of Play”, at today’s Rotary meeting.
Our meeting ended today at 12:55pm with us standing and repeating the Rotary 4 way test.