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This week we heard from author Gary Sosniecki about his book describing his family’s personal tragedy of the murder of his great grandmother by her husband. This week we hear from Mark Dawiziak , author of “Moralists in Disguise”.
Plans are underway for our delayed celebration of our clubs 100th Anniversary. This past week I received on behalf of the club a proclamation from Rotary International president, Holger Knaach, honoring our 100th Anniversary. If anyone is interested in participating in the planning of this event, please contact me. We have an active committee underway working on the event planned for Saturday, October 23.
President Randy called the meeting to order at 12:15. David Dix led today’s patriotic song, “God Bless America,” followed by the invocation by Mary Beth Harper, who read a prayer about kindness by Mother Theresa, and the Pledge of Allegiance.
Visitors: There were no visiting Rotarians at today’s meeting. The family of Jayden Triplett, today’s RHS Student of the Month were our guests.
Student of the Month: Theodore Roosevelt High School Student of the Month was Jayden Triplett; he was introduced by Dennis Love, THRS Principal. Jayden is a member of the National Honor Society and captain of both varsity baseball and track teams. He plans to attend University of Arizona to study business and entrepreneurship.
Announcements:
Carol Crimi announced that the Kent Rotary Foundation made four awards at its recent meeting. Portage County Literary Association received $2000; Tree City Preschool received $2350 to replace their playground. The Girl Scouts received $3063 to help sanitize and create a safe environment for camping this summer and Edible Kent received $735 to support its community garden, which provides homegrown food to local residents at no cost.
Carol also announced that the Kent Rotary Foundation has created a special ad hoc committee consisting of KRF Board members and Rotarians and headed by Sharon Sledzik and Steve Belli. The committee will consider options for linking the Foundation endowment to a professional fund manager.
District Governor Elect Larry Lohman encouraged everyone to attend the District Conference this coming Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Our club will be recognized for its one hundred years of service and those members of District 6630 clubs who have passed away this year will be honored. Larry also noted that the Leadership Conference will be held May 15.
Todd Kamenash encouraged everyone to donate single serving cereal boxes to the Ben Curtis Foundation to win our competition with the Stow Monroe Falls club. In an interesting note, he related that, because of a mix-up in our email addresses, the Kent, Washington club found out about our contest and they have instituted a similar program in their area.
Doug Fuller offered to conduct a tour, for anyone interested, of KSU’s campus explaining his experience on May 4, 1970. Doug was a student at the time, present at the event on May 4, and has an important personal story to relate.
Rotarian Jeff Roeger, manager of Kent’s Walgreen’s, announced that there is plenty of Pfizer vaccine available at his store for anyone who qualifies. No waiting, Just call or stop by.
President Randy announced that we will likely go back to in-person meetings at the Kent United Methodist Church starting in late June.
100-Year Anniversary Moment:
Jim Myers was back from Hilton Head after celebrating his 90th birthday. Happy Birthday, Jim. A transcript of his 100-year moment is available elsewhere on this bulletin.
Today’s Program:
Will Underwood, this month’s Program Chair, introduced Gary Sosniecki, a fellow Rotarian from Lebanon Missouri, author of The Potato Masher Murder, published by Kent State University Press in its true crime series. Will was Gary’s editor on the book. It’s the story of his Great Grandmother’s gruesome murder at the hands of a jealous husband. But there’s a twist: The jealous husband also wound up with knife wounds that day. Was it self-defense? Retribution by Great Grandma’s lover(s)? A botched Murder/Suicide attempt? And, who set the fire that charred Great Grandma’s body?
Shortly after retirement, Gary broke his ankle and was laid up for a time. The mishap gave him the opportunity to research this family mystery about his Great Grandmother’s tragic and unusual demise. The result is a fascinating story about a family secret the truth of which remains hidden to this day. But Gary posits a theory about what happened and the book is sure to be a good read. It’s available through the Kent State University Press, Amazon, and other outlets.
Thomas Hatch offered the response and encouraged everyone to read Gary’s book.
Early in World War Two, in May 1942, Paul Davey suggested to the Rotarians that the members of the military service inducted from Kent would welcome a chatty newsy hometown letter and outlined the formation of an “Uncle Zenas Club” composed of Rotarians who would be willing to correspond with the servicemen. He said the name “Uncle Zenas” seemed a fitting title as it dated back to Zenas Kent, the founder of the city. The plan was cordially received by Rotarians and by the men in the service, and relations set up in this manner were continued for a long period of time. Eventually the large number of men taken from Kent made the plans so cumbersome that it was impossible to continue to correspond with each inductee.
An extension of the plan by interesting Kiwanians was considered, and Paul contacted Brigadier General F. H. Osborne, of the Special Service Division at Washington for a ruling on the project. General Osborne replied that in the interest of safeguarding military information the War Department had adopted The policy of not approving plans for correspondence by individuals who were unknown to the soldiers to whom they were writing. The plan therefore was discontinued.
That year of correspondence between “Uncle Zenas” and his “nephews” brought a great deal of pleasure both to the Rotarians and the service man with whom they had corresponded.
We’ve been challenged by the Stow Munroe Falls Rotary Club to see who can donate more to a food drive in the month of April. More than bragging rights are on the line. Each club’s leadership has agreed that the losing club will donate $100 to the winning club’s choice of charity. Let’s show them what we’re made of!!
The Stow Monroe Falls club will be donating to one of their local charities. Our club will be donating to our familiar friends, the Ben Curtis Family Foundation.
There are two ways to donate:
Follow the link in the attached flyer (tinyurl.com/kentwins). It will open a wish list in Amazon that automatically sends items to the Ben Curtis Family Foundation. To participate in our challenge with SMF, select the single-serving size cereal boxes option.
Purchase single-serving size cereal boxes and drop them off. Here are the dates and times drop-off is available:
Friday, April 30th from Noon-2pm, 2121 Brady Lake Road, Kent 44240
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.
Mark says about his talk: "I do a talk that crosses two areas of interest and several of my books. 'Moralists in Disguise' looks at the many professional and personal parallels between Mark Twain and Rod Serling. It's a fun talk, and I've worked up a Power Point presentation to go with it, and that seems to work well."
