Newsletter

(6-15-06 Meeting)

 

Opening

Steve Govreau opened the meeting and led us all in the Pledge of Allegiance followed by some words of wisdom from Teddy Roosevelt as narrated by Dave Ganevsky.

 

Guests

  

            Guest                      Representing                  Sponsor/Host

            Brendan Hayes       Scholarship Ft. Lewis   Chandler Jackson   

Duane Smith          Program                         Steve Redding

Samantha Gallant   Real Estate                    Tami Coddington

Misha Fritensky     Scholarship U of Maryland Peter Marshal

Nadia Fritensky      Scholarship Lehigh U.  Peter Marshall

Emily Spencer        Strater Catering             Jen Simon

 

Visiting Rotarians -  

Tom Crabbe            Developer                    

Trevor & Vera Hipkin Scotland                  Bob Geffe

Jan Williams          2007 District Governor 

Chessa & Arvella Gill Former Members     Bud Deering

 

New Member Inductions - None

 

 Announcements

 

Bob Chaput announced that he would be taking pictures again if members would like to update their directory picture for the 2007 edition. Send update information for the directory to John Beekman.  Ward Holmes e –mail list and the directory list are different data bases.  Bob was also hawking Rotary shirts for $32.

 

Tim Walsworth’s stand in, Monte, reminded everyone of the upcoming Golf Tournament on Friday, July 21st at Hillcrest.  The sponsor list was on the table. Also, there was a reminder asking for team signups and to start and thinking about bringing in some door prizes and silent auction items.

 

 Steve Wheeldon announced that the Rotary Scholarship fund was established as part of the Community Foundation Serving Southwest Colorado.  The goal is to have a $500,000 endowment so that interest earnings alone will fund annual scholarship awards.  Steve encouraged all Rotarians to write the Foundation into their respective wills in amounts upwards of $100,000 and, ideally $500,000, and then volunteer to be shot so that the Foundation can collect on it immediately.  A letter of instruction on how to do this was distributed to the membership present.    

 

Sgt. of Arms

Mark Prouty pranced around again seeking happy dollar contributions. Duane Smith paid for not making Cubs comments during his program presentation.  Dave Ganevsky paid for getting a hole-in-one during a recent golf tournament.  Justin paid  $5 bucks to announce that his wife was back in town after being gone 16 days and that he had a brief tryst scheduled with her before she left again this PM. He immediately left the table after making the announcement.  Tammi Coddington paid for a promotion her husband received.  Jill Wark announced that her daughter and granddaughter had moved in with her.  Jan Measles paid for having found Jill’s daughter a house to buy.  Phil Bryson paid for the end of the Little League baseball season last night and for the tremendous progress the kids had made during the season.  Rick Routh drew the winning ticket and had to identify which one of our members took several days to recover from a bike accident.  Rick guessed Steve Wheeldon due to his obviously bicycle riding sculpted body.  However, it was Val Phelps who had told us this very personal story on his induction when Rick was out of town on important CDOT business.

 

Program

 Duane Smith, Ft. Lewis College history professor and long time baseball fan gave us all a little history lesson about baseball in southwestern Colorado.   He told us that the game derived from an English game called “rounders.”  It started in this country as early as the 1820s and really became popular after the Civil War.  It was an urban sport primarily played in places like New York and Boston.  However, baseball was introduced in Durango in the 1880s.  Although the players were supposed to be amateurs most were on someone’s payroll. Amongst Durango, Pagosa Springs and Silverton, it appeared that Durango had the weakest team. Professor Smith also enlightened us on the fact that women were also playing baseball back then which is astonishing since they didn’t get the vote until much later.  In an aside, Dr. Smith told us about the federal government paying $50 for captured AWOL Ft. Lewis soldiers. Some reported Mark Prouty sleeping during the program, something he apparently did regularly during his classes with Dr. Smith at Fort Lewis College.

 

Closing

 Bud Deering told a few short humorous jokes which drew laughs and appreciation for their brevity.

Steve then rang the bell to release us.