Notes from September 4, 2025 by Mike Saville
President Cara called the membership to order a few minutes past noon and Dave Hartman offered the invocation. Arnold Oliver then came forward and changed things up a bit by first paying respects to the flag by leading the membership in the singing of “You’re a Grand Old Flag” which we followed up by reciting the pledge. Another tune was in store for us as Arnold then had the membership sing, “Smile, Sing a Song”. After limbering our vocal cords up on two musical numbers we all greeted each other in our Rotary fashion.
We had two visitors join us this week; Solomon Orr, from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at MSU was guest of Colton Heinrich and Andrew Sypula form Elite Leases and Property Management was the guest of our new member Dave. For the Sunshine report, Steve Preister gave an update on Richard Boyd and asked that be remembered in our thoughts and prayers as he was going to be having surgery in Ft Worth following his mishap.
Next on the agenda was the Brag Bucket and this week the bucket was overflowing with boasts. This author does apologize upfront if I missed noting anyone’s brags but the ones I was able to capture were highlighting Dave Hartman’s Birthday, Carla’s Nephew, the 1st football game win for Legacy High School, a shout out to the Cowboys for their first game of the season (OK, that one didn’t work out so well), MSU’s 1st gridiron game of the year, John Mayfield tipped his hat to his daughter, Walter spoke about the FL decision to end vaccinations, Braden bragged on the programs we’ve had at our luncheon meetings and Cara bragged on Josh Phillips for being the 3rd Host Family for our exchange student, Paulina. Whew . . . .
For announcements Cara gave a final report on the donations collected for the Memorial and Legacy Joint Band Trip to London. Individual Rotarians donated a total of $1300 which surpassed the amount to trigger a matching donation of $1000 from the Club’s Flag monies for a total of $2300 for the band trip.
Cara also reminded the membership that our next flag day is next Thursday, 11 Sep and she encouraged the members to support their flag teams.
Josh Phillips then came forward for a check presentation of $1000 from the Club to Habitat for Humanity which was received by our own Will Goodner.
Josh then stayed at the podium to introduce the day’s presenter, Krystal Elmore from Operation Rescue Children (ORC). Krystal explained that ORC is an organization that focuses on training heroes who work on the front lines to dismantle human trafficking networks and protect children from exploitation. She said that following a trip she and her husband, Harley, took to Nepal in 2020 where they saw the effects of sex exploitation of women and children they conceptualized the idea of ORC. For 26 years they have operated Warrior’s Way, a Martial Arts studio in WF and Harley had trained military combat courses for the service’s elite warriors for many years. With this as their backdrop, they wanted to move the needle and become a force multiplier in the support of the brave heroes who risk their lives to rescue children from the horrors of trafficking saving lives and restoring hope to countless victims around the world with ORC. Besides physical training and combat skills they provide coping skills and mental resiliency training and education and awareness for parents of the dangers their children may be exposed to. Their goal is to make WF a hub for ORC and as a new non-profit organization she asked the members to join them in their Power of Prayer Project by lifting up these heroes in prayer. More information can be found at www.StandwithORC.org.
President Cara thanked Krystal for the presentation and told her that our speaker’s gift of a donation to the Wichita Falls ISD Foundation would be made in her name. We then closed the meeting with the Four-Way Test.