MEETING OF MAY 24, 2001 By Cindy Luedtke
Our soon-to-be installed, FIROOZ GHAFFARI presided over the meeting and did a fine job of "acting Presidential" as the meeting progressed.
STEVE SHEPHERD humbled us all with his thought for the day. If you want to be a model person, take a closer look at your dog. He's your best friend, isn't he?RICK GLAZE led a song I'm not sure we'll adopt about being a lost sheep. The story he told was better than the song about how he and his wife Nancy ran into BUD AND ANN OLIVER at Edinborough Castle. Maybe a few more lyrics and its ready for your next CD, Rick.
The money man, WYATT ALLEN announced that preliminary numbers from the Art Show are up this year over last year. Great job everyone! Particularly, TRACIE (Grand Poobah) MURRAY and her Committee (The Pail and Shovel Gang). We pulled it off again. More details of the event will be covered in an upcoming meeting.
JACK HIGGINS received a standing ovation for his official welcome to Red-Badgehood. Congratulations, Jack!
Announcements from the Floor:
JULIE ROSE extended an invitation to join her and the Chamber membership in celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Los Altos Chamber of Commerce. This gala event will be held on June 1st at the Crowne Plaza Cabana. Cocktails at 7:00 PM and Dinner will be served at 8:00 PM. There's still time to make reservations.BOB ADAMS announced there will be a meeting for World Community Service on June 8th at Chef Chu's.
JOANNA MEDIN took signups for the Los Altos Rotary Family Picnic on June 10th. Bring your kids and grandkids. Food and fun will be provided.
Recognition goes to;
BOO BUE announced it was the 50th Anniversary of his first date with Gretchen.MIKE SPENCE is the proud daddy of a daughter who has been chosen to travel with the Women's Olympic Soccer Team this summer.
Happy Birthday, WALT SCHOLEY and BECKY MILLER. CINDY LUEDTKE and her husband DAVE will be celebrating their 21st wedding anniversary on May 31st.
President-elect FIROOZ then congratulated all those involved in the Christmas in April project this year. We thank those who worked a good solid day at Foothill College's Child Development Center, including LUCY RASMUSSEN, CINDY DAY, CINDI EBERHARDT, ROB HOLDEN, SHELLY POTVIN, BOB RAYL, SAM HARDING, KURT HUEG. Special thanks to SAM and JANET HARDING for their wonderful organizational skills and getting this project off the ground.
A sign-up sheet is being circulated to find out how many people will be attending Ginny's Roast on Thursday, June 28th and/or the official kick-out dinner on the evening on June 29th.
STEVE ANDERSON is back in the hospital after having hip surgery. It appears he must undergo yet another corrective surgery. We hope you're out soon, Steve.
A check from LAREF was presented to Jim Brosnan of the Challenge Learning Center. Jim brought with him several students who are active in his program from Woodside High School. Matt and Julie, shared some of their thoughts with the group. Interesting points made were about the incredible stress kids like them are under to make their grades and to choose a college. There was open criticism of the D.A.R.E. program. It is Matt's opinion that the program has been proven to be 97 % ineffective due to distrust from the kids of the facts they are told. Julie would like to see a Rotary Club at their high school.
DICK HENNING announced the day's guest speaker, Elizabeth Barkley. Elizabeth was the first woman to join the Los Altos Rotary in Spring,1987. She later left the club to obtain her PHD from Cal in Fine Arts and had a baby to boot. A professor at Foothill College, Elizabeth has written two books and has been recognized as a Carnegie Scholar and Cal Professor of the Year.
In her search to find commonality among her multi-cultural classroom of students, she discovered that pride of being "Uniquely American" is what binds them and interests them in music that is uniquely American but has roots from their homelands. In collaboration with UC Berkeley Center for American Cultures, Elizabeth designed a course that illustrates how the American music we know and love has its roots in the our Native American, African, Hispanic, European, and Asian heritages. The course has become quite popular with the students. Elizabeth remembers begging seven students to take her first class. Now she teaches the course to 1000 students.
Elizabeth treated us all to snippets of American music and showed how Gospel, Blues, Jazz, and even Hip Hop have a strong component of the "call and response" aspect to our music. This basic characteristic has been traced by ethno-musicologists back to Africa. Personally, I have always wondered why it is so hard sometimes to get people to all clap to the same beat. I now know that if the clap is "off beat" it means there is a strong preference for the African beat as opposed to the "onbeat" response which shows a strong Western European influence. Thanks for a real treat, Elizabeth.
ProgramsMay
May 31 – LARC Scholarship Awards Day
June
June 7 – Art Show Appreciation Day
June 10 - Rotary Family Picnic, 12:30 - 3:30 Serra Park, Sunnyvale
June 14 - LAREF Annual Meeting
June 15 - Bruce Babbitt Celebrity Forum Talk, 8 p.m. and Rotary Reception, 9:30 p.m.
June 21 – Bob Hoffman, Cleaned up Mt. Everest
June 28 – Ginny's Kick-out, part 1
June 29 - LARC Kick-out, Dinner/Dance, Fremont Hills Country Club"Information in this newsletter is intended for the exclusive use of the members of the Rotary Club of Los Altos to facilitate the work of the club and to promote club fellowship. It is not to be used for any commercial or outside, unrelated, non-profit purposes. No publication of material in this newsletter should occur without the express permission of the club President or the Editor of the Rotator."
Copyright 2001 The Los Altos Rotary Club
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