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| Aug 21, 2009 |
Editor: Judy Hosea
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President Greg
opened the meeting at the urging of the
"table of wisdom" noting the time with emphatic finger pointing at their
watches. If only the mike was working!
Able Assistants
Once resolved, he announced that Ron Adkins worked the entry
table in promotion of the upcoming HOMEBREW Festival, while 13-14 or 15-times
Paul Harris Fellow, Ward Fletcher collected contributions for the RI
Foundation. (This substitute
scribe would like to see the Lakewood Foundation also collect weekly
contributions toward a local "Fellow of the Lakes" ….and would be the first to
sign up!) (Such are the powers
of the press!)
That left pushing the sale of the weekly raffle tickets to
the capable Past President, Mary Lou Sclair. The invocation was led by Dan Livingston and the pledge by
Larry Faulk.
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Visiting Rotarians
Visitors were Don Anderson and Ross Hjalseth from Tacoma 8.
Guests of Rotarians
The First Lady, Mary Horn; Allen Fornstein, fiancé of Lorna
Gifford (memberized later in the program), Marissa Andre (Lakewood GSE Team
Norway Member), Pat Price (44-year partner of Bill Price), Drew (son of Bill
White), and Kevin Dayton (WSDOT and our speaker)
Sunshine Report
His Honorableness next called for the Sunshine report from ..
no Greg, Joanne hasn't done it for years.look to her left, there you go: Jan
Luze. Jan reported that Ron Irwin was in the hospital, no details available.
She then asked Bill Young to report on a broken General - Mayor Bill
Harrison. He fell while shopping
at the Commissary and broke three bones in his right shoulder. He has in-house care and is reported to
have about two months of healing.
General - Mayor Harrison is planning a near future move to Patriot's
Landing. As he is at home, he
would appreciate your cards and emails.
His email address is: wharri6665@aol.com
A Blue Badge & A New Member
John Walstrom, President, Clover Park Technical College,
received his Blue Badge today. He
rose to this accomplishment in short order . was it mentioned that Judy Hosea was
his mentor (a proud moment!), assigned by the Chairwoman of the Membership
Committee, Stephanie Walsh!
The introduction of Lorna Gifford came next. President Greg presented an armload of
gifts that only someone who worked for Smith Western could properly muster: The Puffin, directory, pin, 2009 theme pin: "The Future of
Rotary is in Your Hands" and the "Clicker"
version of the 4-way test. (WOW!)
Lorna told the club that family is important and of the
tragedy of her losing a child to leukemia. She is currently involved with a fraternal organization
called Modern Women of America.
The group has a 126 year old history of caring for widows and orphans. They partner and supply matching funds
to local non profits who also serve that population. Her day job is selling insurance and annuities.
Homebrew Festival
We need volunteers for the HOMEBREW FESTIVAL. Beginning with Friday, August 28 after
Rotary and throughout the day on Saturday, time slots are available. Please contact Rick Selden and advise
your availability. You can check out the details on
the HOMEBREW homepage. The
password is "SERVE".
Exchange Student
Inbound Exchange Student, Anatole will arrive this
week. He will spend the first few
days with the Korsmo's before moving on to the Blanchard household, where he
will stay initially.
Since school doesn't begin for a couple weeks, contact John or Mark to
invite Anatole to a ballgame, dinner, or other activity.
GSE Team Member
GSE Team will head for Norway in May of 2010. Marissa Andre is our ambassador. She is already blessed by Rotary in
that she was an exchange student to Chile while in high school. When she returned, Marissa attended and
graduated from PLU. She now
teaches in a K-Fifth Grade Language school in East Tacoma, and is hoping to
gain skills in Oslo by visiting a language school there.
Birthday/Anniversary recognitions
With Past President, Ron Irwin laid up, it was up to Bill
Potter to take over the task of Birthday and Anniversary recognition. This is a new feature in President
Greg's term It will take place on the third Friday
of each month . sometimes overflowing into the fourth Friday if the list is too
long . as it was this month.
Trick Question Rotary was presented to the 17 August Wedding
Anniversary Celebrants - 6 of whom were present. In Attendence: Bob Zawiliski, Astrid Arola, Bill (and Pat)
Price, Vallie Jo Fry, Bill Allen and Gordy Quick.The two questions Bill allowed each to choose from was: (A) What is your favorite
color?
(2) How have
you stayed married so long?
As each was called forward they were asked to choose a
question and wager an amount. Once
the answer was revealed, the celebrant had the choice to pay the fine outright
or spin the color-wheel. If they landed
on RED - Double the Fine
YELLOW - 150% of the fine (or as close as Bill Potter could
round off)
GREEN was the ultimate goal as it meant, NO FINE!
First up was PP ZEE:
Question (2) and wager $19.50 (check from Marilyn) (I was mesmerized and
missed the question.) The answer was wrong . as I
learned they all would be! Astrid: Question (2) and wager $ 25.
(Astrid's response was sincere, the "tight pants" answer
.. not so much!) Bill/Pat Question (A) but Potter's
answer was "plaid".. (I was going to guess that!) Pay
up: $44.
Vallie Jo: Question (2) and
we should have known the answer was The
"4-Way Test" . it cost VJ $33. Bill W. Question (A)..took a stab at guessing his favorite color,
but Potter proclaimed "off-color" was the answer. Bill chose to spin the wheel and he
spun GREEN . but he was a good sport and paid $20
anyway.
Gordy: Chose
(2) and offered up a whopping 71¢ (Wow Juanita . I hope you are reading this!)
His answer was "no call for a vote" .. but alas, that was wrong too. Gordy spun the wheel . .thinking Bill
White had hit GREEN and he could too!
He hit RED and owed $1.42.
As it was Thirteen Hundred Hours (1 pm for some of you),
August Birthday's were deferred until next week! Be there and be ready:
Joanne Crane, Wynn Hoffman, Morris Northcutt, Tracye Kakely, Jay Mayer,
Jim Skar, Debbie LeBeau, John Magnuson, Terry Roarke and Ted Wier. Study up and bring cash!
Fun and Fines
Stuffing in a couple fines before our speaker was
introduced, President Greg called on "Super Power" Mike Block to pay up for his
Super Hero appearance in the illustrious "Forty Under Forty" Award Issue of the
Business Examiner. Congrats Mike
.. the appropriate fine of $40 was collected.
Dan Livingston . the Tillicum-Tavern-Turned-Teen Center
project was completed and was front page news in the TNT. Considering the TNT is down to four
pages, it is hard to be included at all!
Good job, Dan
Speaker of the Day
Our speaker, Kevin Dayton, cousin of Vallie Jo Fry, came to
us from the Washington State Department of Transportation. With tongue in cheek he told us that
their motto is: It doesn't matter
what you do, you're always wrong .. just like Trick Question Jeopardy.
He talked about projects that were both underway and planned
for Pierce County, freight issues and congestion. Noting that there has been over one billion dollars in
improvements since 2002, it is still messy when projects have to be undertaken
with moving traffic. It always
creates backups. The improvements
have resulted in a dramatic drop in accidents.
Freight is booming and important to the State economy. The Ports of Tacoma and Seattle are the
"Gateway to Asia and the East Coast". This industry creates 43,000 jobs locally and 113,000 statewide. By 2025, the number of jobs locally
will increase to 80,000. Truck traffic is predicted
to double by 2020.
I-5, built in the 1960's handled 20,000 cars back then. Today over 250,000 use
I-5 through Pierce and King Counties, without much in the way of improvements.
Stimulus funding is helpful and we will see several projects
moving forward such as the HOV lane on I-5, that
will go from the Port of Tacoma to the King County Line. The 167 Extension is in progress and
will proceed in phases as funding is obtained. The Crossbase Highway (Hwy 704) had its ribbon-cutting ceremony on
August 26. It will link
Spanaway Loop with Thorne Lane. A frontage road is planned from Gravelly
Lake Drive to Thorne Lane.
WSDOT is always a step behind and
cannot keep up with growth .. there is just not enough money to do
everything.
Weekly Drawing
Kevin drew Vallie Jo's number (see.he couldn't even do that
right!). She did the right thing
and drew the white chip.$5
New Member Posting
Unless written objection is received by the Secretary within
10 days, Donya Martin (Banking) will be considered elected into membership of
Lakewood Rotary.
Report from Exchange Student to India Hunter Larsen
I was a little sick so I didn't go to school yesterday. I
ate too many mango pickles. Mom is the only one who cooks so when she is at
work we just scrounge around till she gets home and makes a late lunch.
I made pancakes with a foreign exchange student from Vermont
who brought maple syrup. Because four of the people eating them
were - Hindu's that are vegetarian - we took out the eggs. It wasn't
the same.
Today was my first day in commerce. I had Math and Economics
today. Math was exhaustingly hard and Economics was shockingly simple.
Teachers are not well paid. Here they are paid so little they withhold information that
will be on the exams. Private lessons are the only way to score well.
The lessons cost as much as the entrance into the schools. As a result only the somewhat wealthy get a decent education.
Teachers flats in busy districts to hold classes in the evening. You will see 40 students lined up around blocks waiting to
go in. Juhi told me that the lectures in school can be
so purposefully boring that she didn't even show up except for examinations and
private lessons. She got an A.
I have noticed my
English is becoming more ghati, meaning it is becoming more Indian. I
have not learned Hindi yet. But I am learning.
Juhi, the Rotary exchange
student coming to Washington. is off to Poulsbo. We went to Mumbai (the old
"Bombay" and second populous city in the world) where I had some delicious
veggie burgers at McDonalds. I was in Mumbai for about 3 days and it was so
much fun.
I went to the gateway of India (Churchgate) and the Taj
Hotel (place of recent terrorist attack). I walked all over the city with my
host father and driver. It is huge. The population in Mumbai is
somewhere over 20,000,000.
After that we went to my host cousin's engagement ceremony.
It was awesome. In America I know that an engagement is typically a nice date
with a bottle of wine and a man on one knee. In India it is a ceremony of only
the closest relatives and friends in the inner circle of the family. So about
100-200 people came. Apparently at the wedding even more people come. It was so
fun we threw rice and watched as the Brahmin conducted the ceremony.
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