Rotareminder for the Rotary Club of Kent
Hybrid Meeting on July 8, 2025.

President Amanda welcomed the group by calling the meeting to order at ~12:15pm.  Our patriotic song of the day was   My Country Tis of Thee with David Dix (on piano); Dominique Bolenbacher (vocals) led the club in the singing of  When I’m Sixty-Four, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.                 

The Invocation for today’s meeting was offered by Ralph Kletzien.   Marc and Roger were working tech; Denise handling photos; and Brian handling Rotareminder duties.   

There were no visiting Rotarians. (Save our Speaker, Steve Warren.)

 

Visitors / Guests

Jim Myers introduced his guest, Maggie McKendry, with KSU.
Kathy Myers introduced her guest, Samantha Stevens, with Coleman Health Services.

    

Announcements
     
Carol, along with David, shared their recent experience in El Salvador at a current water project site where our Club was recognized by a few organizations – Cocoda and Rada, for our years of service funding and installing water systems in various parts of the country.
Nancy reminded Rotarians that she has Rotary Club of Kent tumblers for sale at $20 apiece, or two for $30.
PP and PDG, Larry provided a recap of the recent District 6630 Conference, where the district announced a renewal of support from the Gates Foundation for polio vacinations; witnessed the traditional banner exchange; and bestowed the AZ Baker Award to our Club for outstanding service across the most recently-completed fiscal year.  PP Rachel was present today to accept the award from PP and PDG Larry.
President Amanda announced that she will be awarding a free lunch to the Rotarian that brings the greatest number of guests from the previous week.  In addition, President Amanda announced a FIFA Club World Cup watch party will be held this Sunday at 3:00pm at North Water Brewing.  All our welcome.
 

New Member Induction

Melissa Stewart, Banking Center Manager for Hometown Bank, was formally inducted into our club this afternoon by her sponsor, Club Treasuer, Matt.

 

Program    
                    
                    Rotary Jeopardy

                            Steve Warren
                
Today’s speaker was Steve Warren, who is the Director of Operations for Fan Duel Sports Network Ohio,  a position he has held since 2014.  In this position, he oversees the studio facilities in Cleveland and Cincinnati; the facilities and crews for Fan Dual Ohio’s Major League Baseball coverage, as well as, the Cavs (NBA) basketball, Blue Jackets (NHL) hockey and other collegiate events. 

Steve has spent 23 years (overlapping his time with the Indians [nka the Guardians]) as a freelance Producer, Director and Technical Director - primarily in live sports. He has had the opportunity to work Olympics, MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA Football and Basketball, Golf, Boxing… everything from Rugby to Horse Jumping, and is the proud recipient of multiple Regional and National Emmy Awards.

After accompanying his wife, PDG Cheryl Warren, to Rotary service projects for 25 years, Steve finally
became a member in 2014, joining the Rotary Club of Akron. He is a Charter Member of the Rotary
Club of Northeast Ohio, where he was recently installed as President for the 2025-2026 Rotary year.

Steve and Cheryl, live in North Canton. He is an active 33rd Degree Freemason and he has served as
Master of William H. Hoover Lodge in North Canton and as Commander in Chief of the Valley of
Canton, AASR, as well as leadership positions in a dozen more Masonic groups.  He’s been on the
Board of Governors for the Lower Great Lakes Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts
and Sciences since 2003, where he has served terms as a National Trustee in 2018 and 2019.

Today’s program was Steve’s version of Rotary Trivia manifested as a popular game show called Jeopardy – affectionately referred to as Rotary Jeopardy.

The elements of the game were quite simple – there were six categories across six rows of five answers disguised as dollar values –  “Rotary Firsts”, “Rotary Acronyms”,  “Famous Rotarians”, “Rotary by the Numbers”, “Rot-pourri”, and, “Rotary and Polio.”  Steve started the game by selecting one person from the crowd to pick a category and corresponding dollar value.  Once the answer was revealed, the game was opened to the club to the first person who raised their hand to provide the correct question answer.

On this day, Howard T. Boyle was selected and he chose the category “Rotary Firsts” whose answer was “ It happened in September of 1905”, to which Howard replied “what was the date of the first Rotary meeting.”

Once the club got the hang of it, members started to become more enthusiastic with their participation.  There were some tense moments, however, when  selected answers seemed very obscure,  prompting wild guesses ranging from mathematical equations to famous soccer players.  (Those participants were abruptly dismissed and asked to forfeit all of their winnings up to that point.)  

On balance,  it was truly amazing to witness the institutional prowess of our membership and the knowledge they have amassed about this wonderful organization we call Rotary.

Fellow Rotarian,  and new PP, Rachel, delivered a heartfelt thank you to Steve.

 

Respectfully submitted,
Brian K Bialik