Wayne Bedor lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, Mark Prouty is out sick with pneumonia.

Announcements:

Soup for the Soul - Kay Hoppi was a guest who spoke about Sip for the Soul the annual fund raiser to benefit Hospice of Mercy. The cost is $25 per ticket and the event will be Thursday, March 25, 2010 from 5:30 to 8:30 pm at the Fairgrounds

High Noon Saloon & Gambling Hall - Howard is looking for dealers, especially for Craps; Emily asked everyone to promote the event and bring a friend. Ted thanks sponsors so far include Bank of the San Juans, Alpine Bank, Bank of Colorado, First National Bank of Durango, Fast Track Communications, El Rancho and of course the lead sponsor, Liquor World. We still need silent auction items, please contact Nancy Bennet or Ted.

Interact – Dan reminded folks that Nacho has coffee for sale.

Nacho’s Update – He was in Jamaica with the Interact group and they gave books to kids, they will do a full presentation at an upcoming meeting; while in Jamaica he “warmed up a bit” and in one of his 3^rd trimester classes he’s helping kids with disabilities as part of a class project.

Guests

Howard introduced Kay Hoppi with Mercy Health Foundation; Wayne introduced Judith Reynolds our guest speaker; Mark Donahue introduced Mac Muziek

Fines

Anyone not wearing a pin paid $1.000. Mr. Downs was fined for having his spare pin on the back of his badge, even though he was wearing another pin on this shirt. Steve Osborn was fined for having his pin on his badge.

Birthdays and Anniversaries

Birthdays - Cathy Crum; Jill Carrithers (St. Patrick’s day); Dave Farmer. Anniversary – Tom Galbraith

Happy Dollars

Ted Wierather because his son is engaged and now he’ll move out of the basement because his fiancée works in Texas! The Wheeldons for have a great time at spring training. Jan for donations made to her team for Bowl for Kids Sake. Dick for a successful Dave Spencer Ski classic – the trophy is now engraved and on display in the public library. Jill Wark because her sister was accepted into a stem cell transplant program in Wisconsin, Jill is the donor. Dan McCarthy because the FLC girls basketball team made it to the final 8 in the NCAA tournament. Moni Grushkin because her husbands surgery and recovery went well. Tom Brosia thanked Peter’s staff for the great food. Wayne is leaving for Arizona and Moni agree to take notes. Ted had the winning ticket.

Presentation

Judith Reynolds gave a shortened version of a presentation she’s done as part of the Life Long Learning Series she started up at Fort Lewis College. The title of the program was A Tomb of One’s Own. Judith was a political cartoonist for 11 years at the Durango Herald. Her passion is doing the free lecture series at the college. The next program in the series will be on April 22^nd which is the one year anniversary of Stanton Englehart’s death and the program will focus on his landscape art. The final program will be on April 29^th and Brad Bartel will be the guest speaker, this will be his “farewell speech”.

Program Highlights (details are from taking notes and should be reconfirmed with Judith if people are interested in more information)

The tomb that contained 6,000 terra cotta warrior figures was discovered in 1974. All of the warriors had weapons that were real but over time have disappeared because of looting and robbery. Each warrior has a different face. These figures have been used in several recent films including The Mummy – Tomb of the Emperors Dragon; Ocean’s 13 and there is a statue of a warrior at P.F. Changs restaurant near the cash register.

This tomb was for the first emperor of China Qin Shi Huang (259 – 210 BCE). It was a great mausoleum built in Xian. He ascended to the throne at the age of 13. Some of the highlights from his reign include the fact that he ended 400 years of tribal warfare, reformed the language, centralized the government, developed a common currency and system of measurement, rebuilt the Great Wall. He was also a tyrant who enslaved workers for his construction projects, he was obsessed with immortality and he had all written texts destroyed and childless concubines and scholars buried in a tomb.

The tomb is located under the Lishan Mountain an extinct volcano which is an ancient sacred site. The burial mound is 1.5 KM from the museum.

When you are in this tomb it feels like your are standing in an indoor football stadium. There are 6,000 warriors facing East in ranks with earthen walls between them. They are life size. There are multiple pits. Pit one was only 5.7 meters below ground and was opened to the public in 1979. This area where is was discovered was farmed for 2,000 years. It was actually discovered by 4 farmers who were digging and when they found chards they notified officials right away. Because there was a report from Beijing in Xian, word traveled quickly and so the organized a careful dig on the spot. Judith met one of the original farmers. It was interesting to note that these farmers are never named because it was discovered on government land.

This is a working museum where they are still digging and putting things together, you can get close but you cannot touch. The museum is a family friendly place, in fact there is a very large puppet of a warrior holding hands with a young Chinese girl and the puppets speaks … Welcome to the museum little girl ….” It is computerized and very interactive. It’s also commercialized, you can purchase chest sets, decks of cards where the emperor is the Joker!!

For more details please contact Judith Reynolds