Thank you to, David Dix for the extraordinary musical talent we experienced on Tuesday, Feb. 22nd! Kishna Davis Fowler, accompanied by Dr. Kent McWillams with additional musical talent from Jinle Glover led our club in the singing of “Lift Every Voice And Sing.” What an extraordinary experience for us all! Thank you, David Dix for making it possible!
We have several important events coming up for our club. Our club’s 4-way speech contest will be next week, March 8th. We have three brilliant Kent Roosevelt students who will speak on various topics all adhering to the backdrop of the 4-way test. Then, the winner of that contest along with all the winners from our district’s other clubs, will compete on April 9, 2022. Our club is honored to be hosting the competition at Kent Roosevelt on Saturday, April 9th.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR! April 22 and 23 is the District Meeting. It will be at the Sheraton Suites in Cuyahoga Falls. Since our very own Larry Lohman is District Governor, we want to show every other club in the district how AWESOME we are! (They know Larry is awesome, but we need to make sure they know the rest of the club is just as awesome!) Details will be coming soon. Please plan to be there for as much as you can be!
This week we have Dr. Taléa Drummer-Ferrell, KSU Associate VP for Student Affairs & Dean of Students (aka Todd Kamenash’s boss). Let’s all show up to support Todd (who is amazing!) and make sure that Dr. Drummer-Ferrell knows just how amazing he is! I suspect she already knows, but we can all use an extra “atta-boy” in front of our supervisor!
We now can pay for our lunches and other Kent Rotary costs via Venmo. If you don’t have the app on your phone, take a few minutes to go to www.venmo.com. You can learn more about it and download the app. There are no extra charges for you or the club, so it’s a way of making everyone’s life a little easier.
President Kathy called the meeting to order at 12:10 and began the meeting by leading Rotarians in the Pledge of Allegiance.
Rotarians were then treated to a TuTu parade by the kitchen staff to celebrate this special date: Twosday, 2/22/22.
David Dix arranged a special sing-along performance in honor of Black History Month. Kent McWilliams, Dean of the Glauser School of Music at Kent State, Kishna Fowler, Associate Professor of Voice, and Jinle Glover, Kent State graduate student in Voice joined to perform “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a song based on poetry by James Weldon Johnson and named in 1919 by the NAACP as the Black National Anthem.
Visitors: We welcomed visiting Rotarian, Bruce Khan from the Strongsville club. Paul Organ’s guests were Ciearra Brunn and Joanna Stagle from the Marathon Financial office. Laing Kennedy’s guest was Brian Gurbich, KSU Athletics Development Officer. Bill Childers introduced Tammy Hunter, President and CEO of Townhall II. Rachel Kern’s guest was her daughter, Camille.
Announcements:
President Kathy announced that Venmo is now an option for payment of Rotary lunches and dues.
She also reminded everyone of the Auction on May 6 and encouraged participation in the planning committee headed by Stacey Richardson. She thanked Bill Nome for volunteering for the Audio-Visual Committee and reminded everyone of the upcoming District Conference on May 22 and 23.
Todd Kamenash outlined programs for March, which are listed elsewhere in the ebulletin. He noted that the Bracket Buster will be back this year after a two-year hiatus. Funds raised will support our literacy efforts.
Will Underwood reminded everyone of the District 4-Way Speech contest on April 9.
Bill Childers noted the Ralph Kletzian had a bad fall on an icy sidewalk and broke his ankle. He’d appreciate get well messages at his home, 205 Overlook Drive in Kent
Today’s Program: Living and Teaching in Indonesia
Paul Organ introduced Nathan and Katy Thomas who had spent two years living and teaching in Bandung, Indonesia. Nathan now works with Paul at Marathon Financial and Katy teaches ESL at Walsh University.
Indonesia is the largest Muslim country in the world with 273 + million people. Bandung is a beautiful tropical city of several million people, the fourth largest in Indonesia. Known as the “Paris of Java,” it’s a destination for excellent food, perfect weather, narrow streets, and some of the worst traffic in the world.
Nathan and Katy showed us photographs of gorgeous mountainside views, senior citizens free-climbing palm trees to harvest coconuts, a cabless truck with a crazy driver wearing a football helmet for protection, and lots of motorbikes and “Tuk Tuks”, the preferred mode of transportation in Bandung, a city of streets originally designed for horse-drawn carts and buggies. Fortunately, UBER and GRAB bikes are plentiful and easy to order on a phone app, so it’s fairly inexpensive to get around. The street food is inexpensive as well, plentiful, delicious, and very fresh, periodic bouts with food poisoning notwithstanding.
The Thomases learned that the people of their adopted city are very willing to help with everyday tasks such as purchasing SIM cards and navigating grocery stores and street vendors. They are usually “very laid back,” easygoing and friendly to strangers. Their experience was joyful and they came away with many good friends and good memories of their time living in a culture very different from ours.
Today’s Response: Nelson Burns thanked the Thomases for sharing their story of a rich and remarkable experience.
Information in this eBulletin comes primarily from the Rotareminder, board meeting minutes, and stories submitted by members.
If you have any Rotary stories, events or speaker information to benefit the Club, please submit it to info.rotarykentohio.org@gmail.com. We will add it to the next appropriate eBulletin.
.png)
