Rotareminder 04/28/2026

The Rotary Club of Kent

April 28, 2026

 

President Amanda Senn called the meeting to order at 12:15. We sang the God Bless America and Laing Kennedy offered the invocation. Dom Bollenbacher with David Dix at the piano led us in singing “I Saw Her Standing There.”

 

There were no visiting Rotarians at today’s meeting. Jeff Forstner was the guest of Dennis Campbell.

 

Will Underwood thanked Jeff Roeger, Mark Pennell, and Larry Lohman for the help they provided with the District 4-Way Speech Contest.

 

Janice Simmons-Mortimer invited everyone to a special screening of the musical SUFFS at 7 pm at Hiram College. Hosted by the Portage Foundation and the League of Women Voters, SUFFS tells the story of the women’s suffrage movement. The musical will be broadcast on PBS later that same evening.

 

Dennis Campbell invited everyone to attend a Chamber event at Erie Street Kitchen at 4:40 today to share in a discussion about the future of Kent City Schools.

 

Larry Lohman noted that people attending the District Conference participated in a service project packing over 24,000 meals to be given away by the Cleveland and Akron Food Banks. Camp RYLA is scheduled at Hiram College this summer and two students from TRHS will attend. They will share their experiences at a meeting later in the year.

 

Jen Lennox invited everyone to attend the North American Tree Climbing Championships at the SEED Campus on May 15 – 17. More info is available at www.davey.com/seed.

 

Amanda Senn noted that David and Leah McKeen will head up the Gazebo Clean-up project taking over from Sherry and Dave Joy.

 

April 5 – Ben Tipton recalled a great vacation in Newfoundland and Labrador scouting out moose.

April 10 – Jim Myers is 95!! He recalled many unforgettable experiences including sailing the Chesapeake, heading up the School Board on May 4, 1970, visiting the British Parliament on 9/11, and attending a very special VIP experience at Augusta for the Masters Golf Tournament during Covid.

April 10 – Amanda Senn recalled a visit to Prague in Czech Republic, her mother’s family homeland, during her honeymoon.

Jim Myers won the free lunch.

 

Jen Lennox is celebrating 25 years at Davey Tree. Dennis Campbell is celebrating his sister’s recovery from cancer. Jeff Roeger donated $80 for the many reasons to love Kent City Schools. Christy Anderson honored Asad Khan, Nancy Whitehead and Randy Smith with a bad joke of her own: Question: What do you call a row of rabbits hopping backwards? Answer: A receding hare line. Laura Martin Miller is glad to be back at Rotary after the birth of her baby three months ago. Also with a new baby, Mark Pennel’s daughter’s horse gave birth recently to a blue-eyed white (colt??) named Salty. Carol Crimi and Amanda Senn both celebrated Jim Myers’ 95^th birthday.

 

Mary Beth Harper introduced fellow Rotarian Ryan Brannon, a founder of Bent Tree Coffee Roasters and member of the Board of Directors of Kent’s Chamber of Commerce.

 

Ryan started by noting problems that make for a bad cup of coffee: stale beans, inconsistent grind, unfiltered water, the wrong ratio of coffee to water.

 

The solution:

To achieve optimum flavor, grind beans just before brewing; use beans within 5 to 21 days after grind. Grind size matters as well and depends on the method used to brew. Too fine a grind leads to bitter coffee. Too coarse a grind can mean weak coffee. Best to use a burr grinder to insure uniform grind size. Using filtered water is the best way to make delicious coffee. The temperature should be between 195 and 200 degrees F. The best ratio of coffee to water is 1:16 by weight.

 

Coffee flavor depends on the origin of the beans, how they are roasted and how the “cherries” are processed to extract the “beans.” African coffee beans can be very fruity. A light roast yields a bright flavor. A medium roast yields a smooth flavor, and a dark roast results in a bold flavor. Bent Tree uses only the finest beans available and are mostly variations on medium roasts.

 

They are sold at the Bent Tree North Water Street coffee house and in grocery stores around the area. Coffee brewed at the coffeehouse is as fresh as it can be. Coffee purchased in stores has undergone a nitrogen flush and sealing process to insure freshness.

 

Jeff Roeger responded noting that our speaker is another example of the successful entrepreneurs making Kent who a destination and impacting lives beyond our community.