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June 30 - President's Roast

JULY
  1 July  - Kickout Dinner at Los Atlos Country Club
  7 July  - President Marlene - Club Assembly
12 July - LAREF 5:15 pm
14 July  - CACF Report
21 July  - Samina Faheem Sundas - Understanding Islam
28 July  - Ted Garrett - LAVA

See Programs for all of the important dates.

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We arrived today to find “goodie bags” at each seat with presents from our outgoing Pres., CINDY.  She shared some items from her hometown in Wisconsin including none other than “Cheese Head” brand cheese and a pencil with a miniature “cheese head” atop the eraser.  Thanks to our own “Head Cheese” for her generosity.   This was to be the last meeting that Pres. CINDY would have (at least some) control over the happenings of our meetings during her year. 

MARGE GRATIOT led the Pledge with none of us aware of what was to come later.

KENDRA GJERSETH provided another unique song for our meeting.  To the tune of “On Top Of Old Smokey” we sang lyrics to “I Lost My Poor Meatball” or some such spaghetti theme some.  The rationale is that the word “cheese” did appear in the lyrics in honor of Pres. CINDY.

KAREN OWEN, drawing from a recent article from a past Rotary International president in Rotarian Magazine, talked about the importance of Rotary clubs and our humanitarian efforts that promote world peace. 

SAM HARDING filled in admirably introducing visiting Rotarians and guests for “about-to-be president” MARLENE COWAN who was in Chicago attending the Rotary International convention.  Among our visitors were former member WALT SCOLEY and SECIL ERGINLER, a Rotarian visiting from Istanbul, Turkey, who used to work at the Bank of Los Altos 1996-1998 while attending college here.   MARGOT HARRIGAN, the wife of member MIKE HARRIGAN, was also with us.

This was to be a day for recognizing the efforts of Rotarians during the past Rotary year.  RICH FISCHER initiated the first tribute of the day as he provided many accolades to MARGE GRATIOT upon her retirement as superintendent of schools or our Los Altos Elementary School District.  He was both proud and grateful to have worked in concert with MARGE these past years for benefit of the school children of our greater Los Altos community.   RICH then introduced MARGOT HARRIGAN, a long-term member of the Los Altos Elementary School Board.

MARGOT provided some background of our retiring Rotarian as follows:  She was born into a Navy family and moved often while growing up.  She graduated from Stanford University and began her career at Oak School in 1965 as a Special Education teacher then as a third grade teacher. 

She completed her Ph.D. in 1980 and became principal of first Loyola School, then Santa Rita School.  She was promoted to superintendent in 1987 and has excelled as both an administrator and citizen of our community.  In 1995 she was named California’s “Superintendent of the Year” and our Town Crier named her the “Citizen of the Year” in 1998 for elevating the Los Altos Elementary School district to new heights.  She leaves her post with the School District ranked number one in the state.  WOW!  MARGE plans on spending time both in her local residence as well as a Sacramento area home.  She will help develop administrative programs in conjunction with University of California-Davis and provide coaching to principals of under-performing school districts. 

President CINDY presented a plaque that proclaimed June 23, 2005 MARGE GRATIOT Day at Los Altos Rotary and reminded us that June is National Dairy Month by presenting MARGE with a cheese product as well.   Congratulations to MARGE GRATIOT on her retirement, We all extend our tremendous gratitude for all of her hard work in making the Los Altos Elementary School District the best in California.  What a fabulous legacy she has created by her dedication and vision as the leader of our local schools for the past eighteen years.  Thank you, MARGE, and may you enjoy “retirement” as much as you have enjoyed your sterling career!

Recognition continued with JOHN McALISTER, ice-cream theme shirt and all, as he provided opportunities for members to be recognized for their efforts or occurrences.  Members who were afforded such opportunities included MEL KAHN, MIKE SPENCE, WILL COCKERN, GEORGE DAI, JOHN McDONNELL, CHUCK LINDAUER, ROLAND PAYNE, SAM PESNER, CRES McFALL, VICTORIA EMMONS, JOANNE KAVALARIS and JOHN McALISTER himself (but I can’t remember whether it was because of the shirt or in spite of it!). 

KELLY HUDSON was recognized for having completed her bicycle ride to southern California and reported that over $6.8Million was raised for AIDS from pledges raised by all participants.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:
AL TRAFICANTI reminded everyone that the “Kickout Dinner” for Pres. CINDY will be held July 1^st at the Los Altos Golf and Country Club.  If anyone who plans to attend has not paid, please send your check to our club at P. O. Box 794, Los Altos, CA 94023.  An option is to pay at the door, but after that the price goes up!

DENNIS POTTER asked that we announce the opening day for our softball team, which will play Los Altos Kiwanis on July 11, 2005 at Callahan Field (1500 Middlefield Road in Mountain View).  The game begins at 8:00 p.m. and everyone is invited to a BBQ at 6 pm for a $10 charge to cover costs.  For entertainment, you can watch San Jose Rotary play Cupertino Rotary beginning at 6 pm as well.  Come out and support our team.  If you think you might want to play for our softball team this year, contact Larry Chu (Jr.).

DAVID SMITH shared his travels to South Africa with our club through slides and a dialog describing his visit to the Polokwane Rotary Club, a museum of typical African villages, a visit to a school for the blind, and a centennial dinner celebration on the banks of a river in Kruger National Park.  We learned the “sundowners” is a term for people who appear at sundown for a social event (any excuse for a party).  ALAN LAMBERT noted that DAVID was wearing the same cloths at our meeting that he was wearing in a photo taken while in Africa (and wondered if he ever changed his clothes!). 

RELAY FOR LIFE
Rotary is getting prepared to participant in the second annual American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life event that runs for 24-hours beginning at 10:00 am Saturday, on June 25^th at Los Altos High School.  JEANNE MacVICAR announced that RfL funds raised locally to date exceed $300,000, tops in California and 4^th in the country at this date.  WOW!

She stated that people respond primarily for two reasons:  love of people who have become victims of cancer and anger for the need to fight back against the dreaded disease.  The reason for the 24-hour walk is that cancer never sleeps.  Participants will include cancer survivors from 19-months to over 90 years of age.  To help raise additional funds, luminaries were auctioned to JOANNE KAVALARIS, KAREN OWEN, DENNIS YOUNG and WYATT ALLEN. 

In addition to the auction, luminaries were granted by members to the following club members:  ANDERSON, ANGIUS, BERLLY, CABOT, CANN, CARPENTER, CORRAL, EMMONS, FISCHER, KAHN, LUEDTKE, MANNING, MARSHALL, NUTTER, PESNER, RASMUSSEN, SHEPHERD, and SYLVESTER as well as the CEO and employees of Rambus, Inc. for their support of Relay for Life.   

Continuing the theme of member recognition, Pres. CINDY began by paying tribute to the twenty-five past presidents of our club who remain active and supportive of the club. 

She continued by honoring all the new members that have joined our club since July 1^st since all have become active.  She provided individual accolades for accomplishments of each of them for their efforts; especially their fund raising and the soccer coaching.

CINDY then handled out “Service Above Self” certificates to members who were awarded the recognition by our Board of Directors for their efforts and accomplishments throughout the past Rotary year.  Those receiving these certificates of achievement were:

BELLA BERLLY, HEINZ BLENNEMANN, BRUCE CANN, PAUL CONARD, DAVID DYE, VICTORIA EMMONS, ELLEN YAMANE-FLANAGAN, BRENDA NIEDERT FORSTALL, STEVE GRUBER, JOHN HAMBLIN, DICK HASENPFLUG, JACK HEIDMILLER, DICK HENNING, JACK KELLY, ALLART LIGTENBERG, CHUCK LINDAUER, TOM LISTON, SETH MANNING, MARY MARLEY, HERB MARSHALL, CRES MCFALL, KATIE NUTTER, PAUL NYBERG, ROLAND PAYNE, SAM PESNER, DAVID SMITH, JERRY TOMANEK, SANDIE WHIPPLE, and CATHY ANDERSON (STEVE’S wife). 

For those who can be counted upon in support of our weekly meetings, Pres. CINDY recognized members for their consistent attendance.

Those only missing one meeting were JOHN BOGART, MATT CABOT, JACK KELLY, BAIDRA MURPHY and SANDIE WHIPPLE.  Those making 100% of our meetings (or eligible make-up opportunities) were BOB ADAMS, JOHN CARDOZA, JOE CORRAL, MARLENE COWAN, ALLART LIGTENBERG, HERB MARSHALL, JEAN MORDO, SAM PESNER and MEG SOLERA.  Kudos to all of you.

And drum roll please.  LEE LYNCH and GINNY LEAR both have been credited with attending or making up 190 consecutive weeks!    Talk about perfect attendance!

In summary, it takes a group of dedicated, capable and selfless people to make things happen for the benefit of others.  Our club is blessed with a large number of such individuals who have collectively accomplished a great deal for our club this past year alone.  You can see why this club achieves so much to benefit others and why Los Altos Rotary is so respected by others in our community and far beyond.   Thanks, fellow Rotarians, for all that you do!

[Webmaster's note:  Here is another picture of Nathan Auerbach (and DICK HASENPFLUG) as Nathan walks for Polio Plus.  See last week's Rotator for more information and more pictures.]