High Noon Rotary Club of Durango

District 5470

Club 1161

Meet at Doubletree Hotel

Time:  12:00 Noon

Thursdays

Newsletter: August 27, 2009   

Program September 3, 2009: Katie Zortman – Rotaract Club President

Fellow Rotarians: 

• President Mark Prouty led the pledge and Angie Beach followed with an introduction of her grandparents, Leonora and Fred.  Mark Donohue introduced incoming exchange student, Ignacio Ramos from Argentina and his host mom, Karen Perkins whose son is our exchange student in France. Ignacio Wants to learn about fly fishing and snow boarding as well as meet people while he is here in Durango.  Tom Brossia introduced Mike and Carol McGuire from the morning club and honorary High Noon Rotarians, Ron and Miss Jane Fogleman.  Ron would also be our program for today.

• Announcements:    Tim Walsworth made the presentation of a $9,250 check from the United Way/High Noon golf tournament held in July.  Mike Kane and Tim did a wonderful job of pulling this together in light of the recession and the tight local economy.  Tim was happy with our results since some other agency golf tournaments were cancelled for lack of support this year. Kudos to Mike and Tim!!  Cathy Crum reminded us that the Australian GSE Team would be here next week, three members and the leader strong.  Tom and Stanna Galbreath will be hosting one member of the team.  Tuesday night, September 1^st, the team will be going to see the Bar D Wranglers and if you would like to join them contact Roger Ptolemy of the Evening Club.   On Wednesday September 2d they will be going to Mesa Verde followed by a pot luck at the Recreation Center at 6:30 PM.  If you plan to come to the pot luck, please bring a main dish as they are in short supply.  There will be a liquor license so you can bring adult beverages if you wish.  If you can’t make the pot luck, please come to the program which starts at 7:45 PM.  On Thursday 3d, the team goes on the train.  In next week’s installment of meet a Rotarian, Sherry Taber will be interviewed by Burt Coleman.  Mark Prouty then made the belated presentation of the Paul Harris Foundation Award to Miss Jane Fogleman which dates to Rick O’Block’s administration.

• Meet a Rotarian:     None this week.

• Sergeant of Arms, Ward Holmes pinch hit for Emily Spencer and kicked it off with the universal fine for non wearers of the Rotary pin.  Ward’s pet peeve is Rotarians who nail their pin to their badge and think they have avoided a fine; however, Ward fined them $2.  The principle behind wearing the Rotary pin is to publicize Rotary in the community as opposed to just wearing it at meetings.  Steve Osborne stood to quibble with the esteemed Sgt of Arms stand-in and earned a $3 fine instead.  Ken Fuscoe paid $3 as well.  Birthdays included Nancy Hammond who paid last week.  Steve Osborne was fined again after Tom Brossia ratted on Steve for being the subject of a three page spread in the Durango Magazine three weeks ago.  Wedding anniversaries included Rich Kolb, 35 years, and Peter Marshall, 31 years.  Happy $$$: Angie Beach paid for her grandparent’s, Fred and Leonora, 63d wedding anniversary. Melisa Caskey is happy to have garnered her scuba certification and in one more training exercise will earn her advanced open water certification.  Moni Helling is happy to have enrolled her daughter in the American University in Washington and after having been there all of one week; her daughter is not even homesick!!  Bill Cartwright happily took a week off from work to hike the San Juans and bagged four 14ers and three 13ers.  Bill says a bad day of hiking is always better than a good day at work. Cathy Firestone just returned from Alaska where she happily sighted bear, otters, whales and other fauna.  Ward Holmes paid a fine for Tim Walsworth who is leading his 13^th United Way Radiothon on September 11, of this year and has amassed nearly as much loot for the auction as in past years.  Good job Tim and to Ward as well since Ward and Four Corners Broadcasting staff do major support work for the annual auction.

PROGRAM:   Rick Routh introduced the esteemed, honorary High Noon Rotarian, Ron Fogleman, to standing applause.  Although Ron’s advertised presentation was “View Inside the Beltway”, Ron told us that he didn’t consider himself an insider anymore since he has been retired since 1997.  He had myriad topics to pick from such as health care but chose what Ron believes the one that should be on everyone’s mind, the elephant in the room so to speak, Afghanistan.  Ron reviewed the history of Afghanistan going back centuries to Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, the British and the Russians to summarize external interference in the country and then reviewed our involvement.  After showing about fifty or so pictures of why this is a difficult war to fight, Ron offered up the position that the country needs to decide what it’s goals are and an exit strategy.  In summary, it smells a lot like Viet Nam after the first eight years and that our departure from there will probably not affect our security significantly just as was the case in Viet Nam when we left in 1975 after 15 years of involvement.  Thanks to General Fogleman for an enlightening presentation and an enlightened position on the war in Afghanistan.

Mark closed by leading us in “The Four Way Test”; in everything we do and say:

ü Is it the truth?

ü Is it fair to all concerned?

ü Will it build good will and better friendships?

ü Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

 Yours in Rotary,

Editor

Wayne Bedor