High Noon Rotary Club of Durango

District 5470

Club 1161

Meet at Doubletree Hotel

Time: 12:00 Noon

Thursdays

Newsletter: June 3, 2010

Next Week’s Program: Open Sky Wilderness Therapy – local rehabilitation program – Aaron Fernandez - ED

Calendar: Rotary-United Way Golf Fund Raiser: July 16, 2010

President Mark led us in the pledge. Rick Routh introduced program guests, Kent Ford, local river advocate, and Meagan Maloney, SJCA. Tim Walsworth re-introduced Intern, Katy Thompson who graduated from DHS two years ago and now attends LSU. (Katy is also the daughter of former High Nooner, Scott Thompson, of BP fame.) Long lost member, Justin Osborne, was supposed to attend, but was not available. Brad Tafoya attended. Apologies for missing other intros.

Announcements: Barb Stine announced that the scholarship committee did heroic work in awarding numerous scholarships this year. Tim Walsworth again reminded us that July 16^th is the 15^th anniversary of our annual golf tournament fund raiser and sponsorships from several members have really helped put the tournie in great shape just 5 weeks out. Thanks to those who have put together teams, silent auction prizes, and hole sponsors! Tim is now looking for door prizes and volunteers to help with pulling this event off. Send him an email to offer your services if you have not already signed up for this important event. Mark your calendars for Changing of the Guard social on July 1^st. at the Strater. No regular weekly meeting that day. Rotary Member Roster Meister, Bob Chaput, filling in for HI vacationing Tom G., appealed to all to update their personal information in the annual roster and to get new photographs. Retouching is a small fee. Niles Bruno provided the correct pronunciation of last week’s word “facultative” and provided “salubrious” (favorable to or promoting) as the Word of the Day.

Rich Kolb randomly selected the well coiffed & preserved Bob Chaput for us to meet. Bob is retired, techno-savvy, and an I-Pad owner and a non-visitor to strange websites. Some stats:

52 yrs married to HS sweetie who is a very patient woman, 42 yrs in Rotary!, deg in physics, actuarial career (they party more than Accountants, who collectively took a beating today, sorry Brad), Dude - a snowboard instructor for many years. Bob came thru town searching for a unspoiled mountain town and the Strater was so good, he bought a lot the next day. He has provided winning rotary tickets to “the next beauty in line for years”.

Sergeant of Arms (SoA): Bill Cartwright was fairly kind today, unlike Emily Spencer last week. Barb, Clint: Happy B-day. Club anniversaries to Wayne (20); Tami(9). Happiness evinced by:

Bud won’t have to go to doc until 2011. Ted is very happy his neighbor came thru with just a couple of stents after a valley bike ride followed by an ambulance ride to heart center. Walter is v. happy his daughter now has a great education-based job. Moni- the kids are alright and healing after tall fall. Vern enjoyed BBC’s news of the states in Turkey.

Program: Today’s fill-in program was Meagan Malony, river campaign director at San Juan Citizens Alliance, speaking broadly about river conservation across our southwest corner of CO.

Hermosa – the Herm. Ck. Watershed Advocacy Group has met for 2 yrs and now has draft legislation in John Salazar’s office which may lead to a bill establishing a watershed use/management plan which includes some wilderness, some special management zones, and some active management areas. Biking would continue on Herm Ck Trail, but be excluded off to the west. The creek use itself is still open for comments and public input. Many local entities have contributed to the input received for this plan.

San Juan, including Pine and Vallecito – locals now working toward similar planning and use criteria. This work is driven by US FS EIS. Forida is not part of study as it is privately held below dam.

Dolores has two groups where SJCA is represented 1) Dolores River Dialogue Group, below McPhee, works with water flow management. Water groups like Montezuma Water District and Dolores Water Conserv Dist, Bureau of Rec, fishermen/guide groups, rafting community, all sit at this table. Meagan showed a few photos of lower (Slickrock – Bedrock) section from last weekend’s release of 5 days

2) Lower Dolores working group (1 yr old) – drafting committee for special legislation that is trying to manage boating and water users who own the water, and consensus is near. Possibly this summer a better spill management plan will be adopted to better mimic pre-dam flows for fish and boating.

And Animas River Days coming next weekend – plenty of events including a boating film fest without kayak porn (waterfalls, 1st descents), more covers the spectrum of kayaking across US, including sea kayaking. See this link:

http://bestdurangocoloradovacations.com/2010/05/19/animas-river-days-festival-in-durango-co.aspx

Mark Prouty then led us in “The Four Way Test”: of the things we think, say or do:

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,

Rick Routh filling in for Wayne Bedor