Rotareminder by Jennifer Lennox
We were called to order by Larry Lohman, and then said the Pledge of Allegiance. Dave Myers gave the invocation, and we skipped both the fun and patriotic song. There were no visiting Rotarians, and our guests were the 25+ new teachers, administrators and coordinators who will be teaching at the Kent City Schools this year (more on them in a bit).
Announcements: Nancy Whitehead announced she was circulating a card for Stacey Richardson. Rebekah Wright Kulis thanked John Ryan, Randall Smith, Mike Kulis and Jeff Forstner for helping with the Lord’s Lunch. Author’s note: thanks to Rebekah, too, for organizing and participating in the Lord’s Lunch! Jim Myers reminded everyone of the 8/19 Tap Talk on President James Garfield. Will Underwood reminded everyone that next week’s meeting will be at the Kent City Hall in the Council Chambers. He said to find parking wherever you can. Larry Lohman gave the following announcements:
- The End Polio Night at the Guardians will be Aug. 19
- The companion club helped put together flags at Rebekah Wright Kulis’ office space last week. Nithya Venkataraman will soon have more information about the flag program.
- We will NOT have a meeting at noon on Sept 29 and will instead have a “Rotary Speakeasy” at 6 pm at Sue Whiting’s house. There will be a cover charge of $20, which will go towards the Rotary Roosevelt scholarship. (Sue Whiting asked if anyone could play some fun honky-tonk on her piano at the event; see Sue if you can do so.)
- CoCoDa Sun and Water Conference Oct. 2-5 in Cabanas, El Salvador
- The Rotary 250 celebration has two elements: a tree planting program (details to come from Jen Lennox) and 250 million acts of kindness where the district is challenging every club to join this movement to make kindness visible, measurable and contagious. Larry encouraged everyone to help with the acts of kindness.
Program:
Anthony Horton introduced the new teachers, administrators and coordinators ( https://portal.clubrunner.ca/5202/Documents/en-us/e910f1f4-e767-4e29-890c-217f69da99b7/1/).
Afterwards we viewed a video (link here: https://www.facebook.com/epicclassroom/videos/i-remember-thinking-that-teaching-would-be-easy/410676805418574/) about the challenges of being a teacher.
Tom Larkin responded, thanking the community for its support of the teachers, thanking Anthony for his hard work getting this amazing group of teachers, and thanking the teachers for accepting the call to teach.
We then launched in to Happy Bucks: Nelson Burns was happy he survived a 75-mile bike ride, and gave thanks for Tom and Kathy Myers’ dinner, and that one of the new teachers was from Wittenberg. Paul Organ said he spent 10 days biking and driving his car through the Pacific Northwest and got 8 more states on his quest to ride 50K in all 50 states (only four more to go!). John Ryan was happy for the weather on his wilderness cruise in Alaska, and that he came back healthy. Kathy Myers thanked everyone who helped with the auction dinner – Todd and Charlie Kamenash, Dave Myers’ three daughters, Christie Anderson and Brad Bolton (played French café music), Nelson Burns and Tom Hatch. Cathy said Steve Dennis won the dinner at the auction and brought his Kent State friends, who had a wonderful time. Sue Whiting gave a shout out to the teacher from Edinboro. Asad Khan was happy that his middle son is at Wooster, his oldest is at Kenyon and his youngest is a Junior at Kent Roosevelt. Tom Larkin was grateful for the educators and the kids. Will Underwood was grateful for Anthony Horton’s work and for the teachers, and noted that Will’s four children all graduated from Roosevelt. Dennis Campbell was happy for the ribbon cutting at the Davey Inclusive Playground. Larry Lohman was happy to be celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary – even if he had to celebrate it apart from his wife.