Weekly Updates from President Betty Stevens

Posted by Betty Stevens

on Nov 19, 2015

Last week we were fortunate to hear from Bonnie Lynn-Sherow about her project in the Chapman Center for Rural Studies at K-State to record the histories of very small towns—especially those that are shrinking—throughout the state of Kansas. The majority of our members are native Kansans and are familiar with many of those places, so it was especially interesting.

Last Saturday I was able to attend the Annual Foundation Banquet in Overland Park. We were inspired especially by the main presentation by Rotarian Carl Chinnery about his family’s very tragic experience with Polio, and Carl’s personal commitment to do all he can to rid the world of that cruel disease.

If you are a fan of the Kansas Cosmosphere in Hutchinson, or even if you have never visited there, I’m sure you will enjoy next week’s presentation about it. One of our son-in-law’s sister had her wedding reception under the Blackbird (SR-71) that is hanging in the lobby probably because their mother works in the gift shop there. (Guess what my grandchildren often get for Christmas presents from Grandma Barb and Grandpa Frank.)

We will also be introducing a new member AGAIN this week. Vern Henricks and the Membership Committee are progressing well on their goals for new members this year. They depend on all the members to bring prospective good Rotarians to visit our meetings.

Our meetings will skip a week on November 26 so we all can spend time with friends and relatives during Thanksgiving week. The week following that, on December 3, we will be having committee meetings and reports during the meeting and we will also be holding the one official all-club annual meeting in order to vote on the nominated slate of officers for the next Rotary year. If you know you cannot attend that very important meeting, you may give me your proxy vote, either yay or nay for the nominated slate of officers. (Under “Parliamentary Procedure” you are also able to record a vote of “abstain” if you wish to do that.) Also remember that the retired active members are encouraged to attend all our meetings because although their absence does not count against our attendance figures, their presence does help us keep our attendance records healthy. So when we hold this vote, their attendance does help us achieve the requisite quorum.

As I write this I am stranded in Colby, Kansas during the blizzard. But it’s warm and comfy in the motel and I can see the Walmart parking lot that is full of stranded trucks because I-70 is closed from Wakeeney west, well into Colorado. I do intend to get on the road headed east as soon as I can tomorrow (Wednesday). You know they say that Eskimos have 100 or so different names for snow? Well I think we have seen about 20 of those types of snow today, but we had to look quick because they were flying by at 40-50 miles per hour.

Thank you for all you do for Rotary.

“Be a gift to the world.”

Betty Stevens