6-30-15 Newsletter

We met today at the Rancho Cordova City Hall to spend our last meeting under the leadership of President Paul Schubert.

 

 

Neal Orchard greeted us at the door while Beth Walter and Pat Orelli (he is in training) relieved us of our cash, or credit card number, and Jerry Foote marked down the attendance.  

 

We were each, secretly, smuggled a small slip of paper with the words to today’s special song, which we were cautioned to not reveal to President Paul.

 

Joe Scheimer led us in the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of our Country.

 

We were then led, according to my notes, by Pat Orelli in a melodic serenade to our outgoing President Paul.  We butchered the “Mickey Mouse Song" and hoped that President Paul was either amused or astounded.

 

The Thought for the Day was provided by Andy Rooney, “Most of us end up with five or six people who remember us.  Teachers have thousands of people who remember them for the rest of their lives”.

 

President Elect John Chapman introduced his guest, Kimberly Austin of Health Markets.  Welcome Kimberly.

 

Joe Scheimer introduced his bride, Marie. 

 

Ray Wyatt introduced his son, Peter.

 

City Councilperson and Honorary Rotarian Linda Budge was recognized.

 

Good to see all of you.

 

We enjoyed Dave and Jan’s lunch today which consisted of slowly smoked pork ribs with Dave’s secret rub, grilled sliced chicken breast, salad with classic Caesar dressing and croutons, Midwest corn on the cob, pork & beans, rolls and butter, raspberry tart with whipped cream and cold bottled water or lemonade.

 

 

We were reminded of the upcoming Fourth of July Parade with a “Decoration Party” on 7-3-15 at Mike Passof’s place of business at 7:30 am and the Parade at 9:00 am on the 4^th.  Be there on the 3^rd  to help “decorate” and on the 4^th to ride on the float and represent The Rotary Club of Rancho Cordova.

 

With $40.00 in the Pot, Guest Speaker Nancy Teichert drew Chase Armer’s number and Chase drew a white golf ball.  The pot grew and the crowd cheered.

 

PDG Sam Anderson was the Sarge today.  He left all “recognitions” on a voluntary basis.  Several folks volunteered including PDG Clarence Parkins, Pat Braziel, Beth Walter, Chase Armer, Pat Murphy, Tom Redmon, Jerry Smuts, Jerry Foote, PDG Sam Anderson and several others whom I missed, my bad.

 

Joe Scheimer introduced our Guest Speaker, Nancy Teichert.  Some of you may remember her as the better half of our current District Governor Fred Teichert.  Nancy, a recently inducted Rotarian, is a graduate of Indiana University.  She has spent her entire professional career as a news reporter starting with covering the graduation of her high school class for the local newspaper.  She paid her way through college working for her hometown newspaper, the Herald-Telephone in Bloomington, IN.

 

From there, she went to work for the Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, MS where she was part of the team that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for coverage of substandard public schools.  This expose resulted in statewide reforms.  Other investigative stores on government corruption, civil rights and the plight of farm workers were also awarded national journalism prizes.

 

Nancy has worked for the Denver Post as an investigative reporter and for the Sacramento Bee as a special projects reporter until her retirement.  Subsequent to going to work for someone else, Nancy has completed a book on a ship wreck for a local historical organization and a history book for A. Teichert & Sons (you may recognize that name) on its 125^th anniversary.

 

In 2013, Nancy received the Distinguished Alumina Award from Indiana University at which time her husband Fred Teichert (If I put a DG in front of it, you may recognize this name also) established a scholarship in her name as a 20^th anniversary present.

 

During her research in preparation for the publishing of “Mississippi Schools:  Hard Lessons”  she and her team traveled throughout the state of Mississippi interviewing educators, sat in classrooms, walked hallways, listened to students and thoroughly delved into what was going on, or not going on in schools in Mississippi.  Story after story was published, some including the phone numbers of legislators’ offices.  Phones began to ring and they kept ringing.

 

The Mississippi Education Reform Act of 1985 provide for the first publicly funded kindergartens; the first compulsory attendance law; professional development of teachers; statewide testing and strengthened high school graduation requirements. 

 

National columnist Carl Rowan wrote in December of 1982:  “The greatest piece of civil rights, national security, and economic recovery legislation enacted this year does not come out of Congress.  It is a bill enacted by the Mississippi Legislature to spend $106,000,000.00 to give children of that state a more reasonable chance at a decent education and lift Mississippi out of the ignominy of being the worst educated and most backward state in the union.

 

Nancy joined the Sacramento Bee in 1985 based on its long tradition of investigative reporting.  The Bee has won 5 Pulitzer Prizes in its history but today most newspapers don’t have the time and money to let reporters spend three or four months researching a major issue.  Competition from the internet has driven profits into the ground and has forced many newspapers to reduce staffs and eliminate special beats like investigative reporting.

 

Today, the Center for Investigative Reporting partners with more than 300 news outlets, ProPublica, which calls itself “Journalism in the Public Interest”, California Watch, California Healthcare Foundation center for Health Reporting, the center for Public Integrity are among several organizations that produce important news stories across the nation.

 

Nancy’s final recommendation was that “readers need to make sure that any newspaper, television news program or internet site they rely on are staffed by objective, trained, journalists.  So, make sure you’re getting solid, objective reporting”

 

Thank you Nancy, for an excellent and informative presentation.

 

President Paul and soon to be President John Chapman exchanged Presidential and Past Presidential pins.

 

Almost President John, bestowed recognition and honors on “Almost Has Beens”, Beth Walter, and Jerry Foote.  He then presented President Paul with his new “non” President Badge and a plaque for his service to the club.

 

There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned and a new era begun.

 

This is my final newsletter for the Club.  It has been fun but could not have been accomplished without the able assistance of many folks.  Some of those included Brud Dufficy who took notes for me on a couple of occasions, John Chapman and Navin Naik who took pictures on several occasions and Pat Braziel who proof read "most" of the newsletters before they went out.  Any misspellings, grammatical errors, typos, etc. were entirely mine.

 

As the theme for my year as Governor goes, "Have Fun, Share Rotary".