High Noon Rotary Club of Durango

District 5470

Club 1161

Meet at Doubletree Hotel

Time: 12:00 Noon

Thursdays

Newsletter: February 25, 2010

Program: March 4, 2010: Anita Smith speaking on the India School Program

Fellow Rotarians:

President Mark led us in the pledge and Tami Coddington’s guest, Jim Dukes, introduced his guest, son Tatum. Wayne Bedor introduced Steve Wheeldon’s guest and associate, John Moore.

Announcements: Dick Sullivan reminded us of this weekend’s Dave Spencer downhill race and fund raiser at DMR. HNR has two teams headed up by Tom Brossia and Steve Redding. Steve wants his team to meet up at 9:30 AM at the main ticket office. Co-chairs, Ted Weirather and Emily Spencer, then announced April 10^th’s upcoming Casino Night which will be known as the High Noon Saloon and Gambling Hall located at the Durango Arts Center in downtown Durango. Ted highlighted the need to participate and support this major fundraising event by attending and bringing friends, associates, acquaintances, significant others (you get the idea). This is the major fund raiser that helps us do good works in the community such as buying dictionaries for elementary school students, funding scholarships for college bound students, contributing to capital projects as well as lesser community projects which are important to everyone’s health and welfare, and supporting Interact and Rotaract. Nancy Bennett is organizing the silent auction items and Dan McCarthy is helping to line up sponsors for this event. A sign-up sheet was available for members to volunteer for tasks in support of the event. John Hise from the Durango High School was seeking volunteers to assist in judging student history projects next Thursday. Jim Dukes informed us of an Interact fundraiser which involves selling free coffee. Proceeds go to: 1/3 HNR, 1/3 to Rotary International and 1/3 to the Interact Club. Mike Burns is leading a four person bowlathon team called I’m not kidding): The Turkey and Three Chicks. Mike passed a sign up list to contribute to the cause. Nacho reported that he attended a Morning Rotary meeting, practiced hockey for two hours Saturday and was sung to today by HNR members to celebrate Nacho’s 18^th birthday today!!

Sergeant of Arms (SoA) Jill Carithers announced the birthday of Bob Chaput who appears ageless as depicted by his picture in the HNR directory. Bob reported that the check is in the mail. Bud Poe correctly acknowledged his 15^th anniversary with HNR. Jill then did a pin and badge checks and garnered a few fines there. Happy $$$: Dan McCarthy is happy about Nacho’s impending stay with Dan and his family. Dan then announced that there would be more discipline and less food at his home unlike at some of the other host families that Nacho has stayed with this year. Dan appears pretty well fed to the casual observer though. Not to worry Nacho. Dan also reported on the upcoming independent film festival. Don Freemyer was happy about a recent fundraiser that he attended for the Boys and Girl’s Club. Bill Cartwright happily skied last week at Winter Park with his family. Guest, John Moore, contributed happy $$$ for his recent 4^th wedding anniversary. Dick Sullivan is happy about fielding two ski teams for the Dave Spencer event. Jim Duke is happy the HNR, LPEA and the Pine River Valley Rotary Club helped to fund Interact’s trip to Jamaica. Tatum Duke is happy about a day off from school. Jill then hyped Casino Night by having each table play five card stud with the losing table being fined. Even though Jill is admittedly poker challenged, with the help of her consultant, Charlie Albert she pulled it off. Three tables happily paid fines for losing to the white hats at President Mark’s table. Jill, as usual, did a yeoman’s job of raising funds as the Sergeant of Arms during February 2010. Thank you Jill.

Program: 20 year High Noon Rotarian and past president (1995-1996) Rick O’Block gave us a synopsis of the health care environment in our community with commentary on the current health care dialogue nationally. Rick kicked it off with an anecdotal story about why only $20 out of a $150 doctor’s bill is for professional services and the balance, $130, goes for lab and cat scan testing. You had to be there. Rick then scared us with statistics about 44,000-98,000 medical error deaths which cost $9 billion over two years. Rick also informed us that we have 3 MRIs in the community and 150 board certified physicians at Mercy. Mercy handled 19,000 emergency visits, 18,000 office appointments, 1,000 deliveries, 19,000 radiology procedures and 547,000 pharmacy orders last year. Pretty impressive for an 82 bed hospital. Mercy is on the leading edge of many advanced medical services and has an exemplary record on infections. Rick confirmed what most of us know: we are all very fortunate to have such outstanding medical provider facilities and professionals available in our community. It was a great program and very informative. Thank you Rick.

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,

Editor

Wayne Bedor