Thomas Mangan joined our club last August, a meeting that he warmly remembers happened to coincide with the debut of the “Old Folks Boogie,” a song led by Bob Hammon and originally performed by Little Feet. Thomas is a consulting geologist with Geothink, a company that provides environmental and natural resource consulting and contracting services in the greater Chicagoland area. He came to Sycamore in 1988 from Ohio. 

 

Thomas’ journey to Sycamore originally arose out of a working relationship that he had with Gary Stapleton, who encouraged him to explore Sycamore as a possible relocation area. Thomas and his wife, Nancy, have been married for more than 34 years and 4 children and 7 grand boys. His dad was a builder (Mangan Builders), and because of that, Thomas grew up working in the trades. He attributes his good work ethic to the time he had working with his father. On a more solemn note, Thomas’ father recently passed away at the age of 92. 

 

Thomas wrapped up his classification speech by giving a brief history of the Blumen Gardens building and his involvement with the environmental cleanup of some of the waste materials that used to be stored there.

 

Sycamore Rotary Club’s short term exchange program continued this year with the arrival of Laureanna Bagliani and Martin San Emeterio.  Illinois’ brutal winter weather did little to welcome our Southern Hemisphere visitors who, during today’s presentation, mentioned that they are used to summers of 110 degrees and no snow. So far they say they are “surviving the weather shock.” So far, they’ve visited Starved Rock, where they witnessed a frozen waterfall, commenting that it was a very pretty park. Martin comes from a family of 5 with parents who work as a nutritionist and a doctor. Laureanna comes from a family of 4 and her family are ranchers. Both Martin and Laureanna are planning to go into medicine. Next year they plan on attending college about 6 hours from home. 

 

Also joining us was Sebastian Colmenares, our long-term exchange student from Valencia, Venezuela. He too has been surviving the cold weather but took a small break from thinking about the snow to help his dad celebrate his dad’s birthday last week. He talked to him on the phone and enjoyed a ceremonial cake eating simultaneously with his remote father. Sebastian commented that of everyone he knows, his father is the person Sebastian would like to be, and that his father has made his life “so special”. The club sang Happy Birthday to Sebastian’s dad.