Golf Committee bookkeeper PP Mark Johnson announced we are very close to reaching the maximum number of golfers for the August 3 event and after updating the data last night, we have officially reached the maximum of 144 golfers with 8 spots unfilled but 16 known, outstanding spots in line or potentially in line to fill those!  Friday, July 27 is the registration and printing deadline so get those registrations and names of golfers to the bookkeeper!  Golfer's names are needed from these Rotarians for foursomes they recruited/paid for:  Mark Rank, PP Joe Hughes, and PP Lloyd Gottman.  PP Jim Wingert thanked everyone for sponsorships which are approaching $30,000, especially PP Jeff Kaes for getting the Phelps Engineering Gold sponsorship!.  On the day of the event remember to wear your Rotary burgundy shirts and kaki pants/shorts.  

On behalf of the club, President Talee received very nice compliments from District Governor Sandy following her visit last week ...  "Talee, What a great club you are President of! BIG THANK YOU for the beautiful flowers.  I am incredibly impressed and inspired by what all your members are doing and how you have it organized to get and keep everyone involved. Your club is a great role model for a successful Rotary Club … forgot to say big thank you also for the recap of your club at the board meeting before the club meeting. Please thank all of them for taking the extra time. Very beneficial and helpful for me."   

UPDATE YOUR PERSONAL PROFILES - During the course of contacting everyone regarding the Salvage restaurant news it was noted that the contact information of several members on the SHRC website needs to be updated.  To do that go to the Smoky Hill Rotary website: https://portal.clubrunner.ca/6789; click on Member Login (upper right corner); enter your login name (capitalized first letter of first name followed by last name in all lower case followed by 6789) or click Forgot Login Name?); enter your password or click Forgot Password?; click on Member Area (upper right corner); under My ClubRunner click on Edit My Profile; under Member Profile click on Edit; when done editing click on Save. 

Rotary is People of Action … 

THIS WEEK'S PROGRAM

Christina Zazueta, Community Engagement Manager for the Regional Transportation District (RTD) gave us an update on RTD.  Christina has been with the RTD for one year.  The RTD is a region of 3M people, 2,342 square miles (one of the largest in the US), annual ridership of 101 million, 2,800 employees, 9,000 bus stops, 172 light rail vehicles, 66 commuter rail vehicles, 31,000 parking spaces and 1,396 buses!

The Southeast extension extends light rail by 2.3 miles from Lincoln Avenue to RidgeGate Parkway.  RTD has $92M through a Small Starts federal grant and SouthEast Partners are contributing $25M in cash and $15M in right-of-way, permits and other in-kind contributions to fund the extension.

The Denver Union Station is a $484M project.  The RTD purchased the historic building and 19.5 acres of land in 2001 for $49.8M.  It is a multimodal hub integrating light rail, commuter rail, Amtrak, buses, taxis, shuttles, bikes and pedestrians.  The historic building opened in July 2014 as a boutique hotel, restaurants and shops.   

In 2017 the Civic Center Station was renovated at a cost of $31M.  The station serves as one of RTD's busiest regional transit centers serving an average of 15,000 passengers per day plus 40,000 weekday passengers from the 16th Street Free Mall Ride.

RTD is an economic driver of more than $5.6B across the region.  It has created 14,000 full-time jobs since FasTracks began in 2005.  Union Station has driven the development of $3B in the surrounding area.  Every $1 invested in transit infrastructure injects $4 into the local economy!