March 16th 2015 Meeting Notes

Rotary Meeting March 16th at China City

Guests include Billy Ducharme’s mom Jane back for a second visit, Debora Valis came back from her travels and Steve Shapiro joined her, and Tracy Schultz brought her hubby Brad.

Lots of Happy Thoughts, including Ashley who commented on how nice it was to see how many Rotarians helped at the pancake breakfast; Jerry was happy to be well enough to return, and shared the news that he will be giving a presentation to the morning club on March 24th – for which Ashley charged him $5. Debora was glad to be back and that WOW series was done. Marion (who participated in WOW series) was happy to have gotten through it; Doug was happy with week 6 and his son is still gone and his daughter has decided to do Running Start and many folks were happy about the return of the sun after the weekend rains.

Gordy gave a review of the upcoming Jose and Jack party. Twenty plus tickets are sold, with room for about 10 more.

Lyn reported that we got the $2500 grant money from Rotary for the calculator program, so Clyde gave an overview of the need for the calculators and how they will be used.

Jerry commented on the generosity of many people in the community and the club who gave money as well.

Virginia announced all those going on the Lake Chelan trip need to call Wapato Point with their credit card info to hold the reservations,the front desk has all the names of those going. It is only the weekend of May 15-17th.

Jane gave first call for Dave Slepyan from the Anacortes Club.

Lyn reminded everyone of roadside clean up on March 28th and no meeting March 30th.

Jane called George Henny and Bill Leeds to come up and thanked them both for outstanding contributions not only to the Christmas tree lot but also to stepping in whenever called on – George and his kids helping at Whidbey Childrens Theater yard day and Bill at the pancake breakfast among other endeavors. They were both awarded pins.

Debora Valis gave an overview on what the WOW (Women on Whidbey) series was about. This was it’s fourth year, and our own Marion Henny was one of the presenters, so today she gave us her presentation as a classification talk.

Marion’s father was born in Seattle but moved east for further education. There he met and married Marion’s mother, and Marion was #3 of 4 girls born to them. Her father was a well know and accomplished neurologic doctor and surgeon in Philadelphia, and he started his own clinic for cerebral palsy. He raised his girls to be independent and self sufficient. Marion worked as his secretary at the clinic for awhile. She told us how she was challenged without spell check – and how important it is to know risk from risqué! She began working for Bell telephone, and worked doing presentations and lectures to groups.

Her father had a physician friend (Dr. Henny) with a son who was raising four small children on his own. They set Marion up on a blind date, and when she heard David Henny owned a small independent phone coming in Washington she thought she could teach him a thing or two about the telephone business. She was impressed with his knowledge, and they ended up getting married in 1965. Marion helped raise the four children and had three more of her own, along with working with David growing and improving on the phone company. Although David has been gone for some time, Marion has been active in the company and still feels your employees can help customers best when they are happy.

She has been able to fulfill her longtime dream of going to China, and has made six visits there now. She has been active in supporting and sponsoring many youth from China. She told how proud her father had been when he joined Rotary, and said she too felt very proud to have been invited to join along with her son George.

Jane gave announcements for next week duties: greeter: Bill Leeds, scribe: Gabrielle, photos: Jerry and set up take down is still Ashley and Jerry