President Elect Kathy Myers welcomed the group.
Patriotic song God Bless America was arranged by David Dix.
President Elect Kathy led the Pledge of Allegiance.
The Invocation was offered by Rachel Kerns. .
Brian Bialik handling Rotareminder duties.
Visiting Rotarians
None
Guests
Paul Organ introduced future member Philip Lanier of DS Architecture.
Student of the Month
TRHS principal, Dennis Love introduced our student of the month - Andrew Valetta, THRS Sr.
Announcements
- Carol Crimi announced that the Kent Rotary Foundation will be meeting April 13th and are now entertaining requests to be received no later than April 2nd.
- Roger Sidoti announced on behalf of Kent City Council, that the Kent Historic South end will be holding an event at the new Thomas Anderson Memorial Garden.The event will be this Sunday, March 21st at 3:00pm.
- Will Underwood thanked club members for volunteering their time to help organize the upcoming speech contest events.
- Bill Childers mentioned he saw fellow rotarian Duane Fitts at a vaccine clinic.In addition, he also announced that 50% of the proceeds from the upcoming March Madness fundraising event organized by United Way of Portage County will benefit the agency.
- President-Elect, Kathy Myers thanked all rotarians on behalf of Kelly Tremaine, for their time spent with the literacy project.
- Nelson Burns noted via John Flynn, that club member Dick King is seriously ill.Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.
- Mary Beth Harper and Sue Hetrick are looking to hand off the Children of the Dump Xmas box project and are inviting new volunteers, as well as new ideas.Anita Herington has indicated that she would be willing to step up to assist.
- Program Chair, David Myers, is exploring the notion of returning to face-to-face meetings as early as July.A hybrid model is being explored that may require the use of the gymnasium at the UMCC.More to come…
100th Anniversary moment(s) – Jim Myers
Speaker - Club member Laing Kennedy
Todd Kamenesh introduced Club Member and retired AD from KSU, Laing Kennedy who is here today to give his insights about the upcoming March Muddleness tournament.
Observations:
- Money is driving the decision; single destination cities – Indianapolis / San Antonio for men’s and women’s respectively.
- 60% of what comes in is re-distributed to participating universities.
- Getting to this point was greatly impacted by the pandemic, fewer games, postponements, teams skipping their own conference tournaments.
- Added contingencies have been developed in response to the chaos and unevenness the pandemic has caused.One example is that all conferences have selected replacements for each auto-qualifier (AQ) for each conference should any AQ be unable to attend.
- Perennial powers have failed to qualify (Duke, Kentucky); other traditional powers have come in as much lower seeds (Syracuse, Kansas, MSU).
Laing’s (Saundra’s) TIPS for your bracket:
- Have at least a #1 seed up to Elite 8.
- #5 seed or lower has ever won the tournament.
- Conference Tournament Champs aren’t a sure thing.
- Team with head coach who has a beard has never won it all.
- Big 10 has the most top teams this year with nine in the tournament.
- Mid-majors have more experienced players that can give one and done teams trouble (e.g., Ohio, Liberty, Wintrhrop).
- No coach over seventy has ever won it all.
- Mean number of upsets each year is twenty-five.
- Picking double-digit seeds is smart…until it isn’t.
- Blue is the color of champions…!
- Dressing to the nines – now a sign of the past?
- Pick your final four from the top three lines.
MAC Champions’ Thoughts…
Women’s - Central Michigan
Men’s – Ohio University (Picked by Laing to knock off VA in first round. VA is still dealing with COVID.)
This may be the year for Gonzaga (OSU, ILL, Florida St make up his final four); Gonzaga vs Ill in the final game with Illinois crowned champion.
Women’s Stanford, UCONN, South Car, Maryland, Tx A&M, Baylor, Iowa St; NC State
Todd’s thoughts…
Think about teams with natural disasters as names. Iowa State Cyclones for women to win it all.
Curt Stumpf served as today’s response to our program
Next week’s topic - 4-Way Speech Contest.
Respectfully submitted,
Brian K Bialik
