I was honored to be asked to fill in for Camille this week at Rotary.  We welcomed our speaker, Dirk Chatelain, a sports writer for the Omaha World Herald and author of the newspaper series and book, 24th and Glory.

 

Dirk grew up in Rising City, Nebraska, a town of 350+ and went to Columbus High School and the University of Nebraska.  Dirk is the 5X Nebraska Sports Writer of the year and has been honored with several other awards for journalism.  He is currently touring and presenting his book story at a rate of about once-per-week.

 

His book is about the best athletes in Omaha's history, who all shared common experiences at the same time in roughly a one-mile area of the Near North Side of Omaha.  He started his research when he was just 24-years old and is now 38.  He has conducted more than 80 interviews.  His story chronicles the intersection of sports and the civil rights movement of the 1960s in Omaha.

 

His book highlights the contribution of Josh Gibson, brother of Bob Gibson.  Josh was a college graduate and also earned a master's degree from Creighton in the 1950s.  Rarely, did an African American achieve that kind of academic success at that time.  Josh gave back to his community by inspiring and mentoring neighborhood kids and kept them out of trouble.  He coached the kids and taught them to succeed and be the best they could be, despite the belief of others that frustrated their pursuit to achieve.  He kept them busy all day long and taught them team work.

 

Dirk was one of the best speakers I have enjoyed in my 17 years in the club.  For those who missed this, you really missed out.  I want to remind everyone to make our Wednesday meetings a priority in your weekly schedule.  Today was one of the least-attended meetings in some time.  Let's kick it up a notch next week!

 

Good news:  John Marburger's son is now a lead pharmacist at a large Hy-Vee store south of the Omaha metro area.