Rotogear for September 10, 2008

RI President Dong Kurn Lee's Guest Book

The Rotogear
of the Rotary Club of Fort Collins

September 10, 2008

Last July, 230 top high school students from Rotary Districts 5440 and 5450 gathered for the annual, five-day RYLA (Rotary Youth Leadership Award) leadership conference at the YMCA Center in Estes Park. One week later, 120 middle school students attended Young RYLA (also for five days) at the Ponderosa Retreat and Conference Center in Larkspur, Colorado. The RYLA program has been held at the YMCA center for over 20 years. The YRYLA program is the only one in the United States, and the second one in the world. Today, participants in both conferences will speak about their experiences at these unique events.

RYLA (for high-school juniors and sophomores), and YRYLA (for 7th graders) is a life-changing leadership training program for young men and women where leadership skills and principles are learned, developed and enhanced in an atmosphere of trust and respect.

Melissa Yurash

Melissa Yurash will speak about both programs and introduce our YRYLA/RYLA speakers. She has been a Junior counselor for both RYLA and YRYLA, and will be the Head Junior Counselor for YRYLA in 2009. Melissa is a freshman at UC Denver, and went to Guatemala with our club members last June.

Kyle Schroeder is in the Honors Program at Lincoln Jr. High School with an overall 3.5 GPA. He takes a WEB (Where Everyone Belongs) Leadership Class, and is active in drawing, basketball, soccer and photography.

Geoffrey DeSena, a Senior at Fort Collins High School with a 3.8 GPA, is recipient of the Presidential Award for Academic Excellence. He played for, and helped coach, the 2007 state champion Fort Collins Unified lacrosse team.

Kelsey Brozek, a Junior at Fort Collins High School, enjoys golfing and helping with extracurricular programs including the library’s youth reading program. She lettered in varsity wrestling as freshman team manager, and last year she attended the San Francisco “People to People Leadership Conference”.

Kerry White, a senior at Fort Collins High School with a 3.7 GPA, is very active in sports. In 2006 he was the tennis Boys 16 and Under Singles Champion and lettered in the FCHS Academic Excellence Program. In his winning RYLA essay “Education In an Era of Change” he wrote, “Education and educational reform...is my vision for the twenty-first [century].”

Janessa Malisani, a senior at Poudre High School with a GPA of 3.6, is on the IB Honor Roll, is a gymnast, diver and tennis player, and earned Athlete of the Year in 2007-08 Janessa is also certified at the “Professional” level in both CPR and AED as a member of the Volunteer Ski Patrol, and attended the 2007 medical health leadership conference at the Summer Health Careers Institute. She is very interested in RI’s Summer Exchange Program.

Presiding at Last Weeks Meeting

Randy Kurtz

Presiding: Jan Bertholf

Invocation & Pledge: Larry Kunter

Music: Steve Busch

Song Leader: Steve Busch

Greeters: Randy Kurtz

Introductions: Randy Kurtz

Microphone & Seargent at Arms: Stacy Plemmons

Guests Last Week

L'Joy Griebenow, Ken Morrison, Justin Kuhlmann, guests of the club

Dawn Putney, guest of Amy Pezzani

Katie Hollingsworth and Him Heaberhin, guests of Connie Pfeiffenberger

Bruce Hutson, guest of Loren Dilsaver

Ben Canda, guest of Doug Hutchinson

Wade Dupree, guest of Judy Boggs

M. Sanders, guest of Mike Anderson

Anna Creal, guest of Steve Creal

Visiting Rotarians

none

Announcements

Phyllis Abt	Connie Pfeiffenberger
Melanie Chamberlain	Glenn Schmidt
Taylor Hall	Dawn Davis

Phyllis Abt reminded those with red badges of the upcoming Fireside at Betty Brown’s on September 24, 7:00 pm.

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Connie Pfeiffenberger reported the District Newsletter had a good article on our Club’s work in Gualan, Guatemala. She acknowledged Chuck Rutenberg as the author of the article.

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Melanie Chamberlain invited everyone to participation in the Harvest Festival at Spring Creek Gardens this coming weekend.

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Glenn Schmidt invited everyone interested to come to the first meeting of the Investing Fellowship at Joe’s Coffee House on September 24, right after the end of our Club’s meeting.

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Taylor Hall called for applications for GSE team members and team leader—due soon. This year’s team will go to northern Chile. See Taylor or Tammy Niemann for applications. See more information below.

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Dawn Davis urged everyone to come to the Rotary Olympics on September 12. There will be plenty of easy games to play, various items for auction (donate some also, please), and a spirited competition between Rotary Clubs. Proceeds are earmarked for the Inspiration Playground. Dawn showed us several unique ways to get in condition for the competition.

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Max Getts had distributed on every table a photo of Safeway Store #242. He pointed out several interesting items/costs in the display.

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Cadet of the Month

Lt. Col. Andy Groeger

Justin Kuhlmann

Professor of Military Science (PMS), Lt. Col. Andy Groeger introduced Justin Kuhlmann as Cadet of the Month. An Eagle Scout and track participant at Greeley West high school, Justin carries a 3.2 grade average, majoring in Political Science at CSU and is a member of Ranger Challenge. He participated in the LDAC, Leader Development and Assessment Center, this summer and attained an Excellence Rating. He is in charge of detachment fund-raising, with 12-15K to his credit. The detachment is in charge of setting up and tearing down Ram Town at each CSU football game and Justin is in charge of this task.

Justin then thanked the Club, his PMS, other cadets, and his parents for their recognition and support. He is a senior at CSU, hoping to become an aviation officer upon commission. He plans to get his Master’s and teach ROTC at a university.

Eating Crow (or drinking Buff Beer)

Jim Butzek

Susie Ewing

Jim Butzek, standing in for John Roberts, presented Susie Ewing the Buffalo Gold Award—a bottle of beer. Think it had something to do with the football game last week? Susie accepted the award reservedly. Jim could be heard leaving the podium saying, "see you next year again."

"A horse never runs so fast as when he has other horses to catch up and outpace" -- Ovid

"Do as adversaries do in law -- Strive mightly, but ean and drink as friends" -- Shakespear

Classification Talk

Carrie Baumgart

Carrie Baumgart’s classification is Auto – Retail. Carrie is a fourth generation member of the Markley family to be working at Markley Motors and very proud to be following her grandfather, Gene Markley, in the business. She has worked for Markley Motors for around 20 years. She started doing filing and answering the phones while in high school to make spending money. Then she worked for 5+ years in the service department followed by 10 years in marketing. Last year she completed the National Automobile Dealer Academy year long course and is not working as a General Manager Trainee.

Cary is married to Eric and has two children, Ashley 16 and Hunter 6. She loves being in Rotary and is anxious to meet all of the members and get involved in our activities.

Group Study Exchange Experience

Five weeks in Southern Chile - Interested? Spanish speakers encouraged to apply but not a necessary skill. Our district is looking for a ROTARIAN to be our 2009 GSE Team Leader to Southern Chile - Rotary District 4350, see their web site: Rotary Districe 4350. Leader applications are due September 6 to Tammie. Interviews are September 20, 2009, Laramie. The trip leaves in the early spring and is a cultural and vocational exchange. We are also seeking NON-ROTARIANS age 25 - 40 to be GSE Team Members. Frequently asked questions can be found at: GSE Questiions. Applications are due by the end of September to Tammie. Information and applications are on RI webpage at: GSE Application or call Tammie Niemann, 231-9786 or niemannted@aol.com.

Last Week's Program

Henry Weisser

Bill West introduced fellow Rotarian and CSU History Professor Emeritus Henry Weisser to give us a program entitled “Was the American Frontier Unique?” Henry indicated that the last time he gave this program was on April 15th to the After Work Club, where he got a great reception, possibly due to some members being “sloshed”.

The frontier concept inspired and inspires all Americans, even in Manhattan, New York, where Henry played cowboys and Indians when he was young. Henry answered his own presentation title question. Yes, our frontier was unique, but our frontier experiences sere similar in many way to those of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, several areas of Africa, Northwest India and Russia.

Henry explained these similarities and one difference. He then showed slides of publication cartoons that depicted in humorous, heroic and exaggerated ways, the events and feelings that occurred in the many frontiers.

Calendar

Sep 12 - Rotary Quad Club Picnic and Olympics at Inspiration Playground, 5:00 pm

Sep 15 - After Work Rotary Club Golf Tourney, called the Big Kahuna Golf Tourney, at Pelican Lakes Golf Club

Sep 30 - Teacher of Year Tri-club Meeting, 12:00 noon, at the Marriott - NOT A WEDNESDAY MEETING

Sep 30 - GSE team applications due to Tammie Niemann

Future Meetings

Sep 17 - ??????????????????????????????????

Sep 24 - CSU Volleyball by coach Tom Hilbert

Links to the previous and next Rotogears

September 3, 2008

September 17, 2008

Warren and Genny Garst Wildlife Collection at CSU Click here or on the "tiger."

Rotary District 5440 Home Page - We recommend browsing this page particularly the links to other Clubs in District 5440 as your time permits.

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