Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show May 28 2009

The eleventh month under the “Reign of SETH” has come to a close. Greeters BILL MOISON and PAUL SCHUTZ were in place to make it a memorable occasion. President MANNING rang the assembled masses to order at precisely 12:15:26. DICK HENNING led the Pledge, and, as usual, most everyone knew the words. STEVE GRUBER gave a quote from W.C. Fields as our “Thought for the Day”: “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a fool about it.” And, as usual, most everyone knew who W.C. Fields was.

For future reference, membership should know that our Songmeisters take requests. JOHN SYLVESTER led the glee club in “You Are My Sunshine” which was requested by out-going board member, in-coming secretary, Relay-for-Life co-chair and all-around fellowship instigator KENDRA GJERSETH.

No PE TRACIE, no visiting Rotarians. Coincidence? May be; May be not. You decide.

President SETH then called upon members to introduce their guests. DAVID CASAS, MARV PATTERSON and VAL CARPENTER introduced their respective guests of the club.

The PREZ had BILL PALMER take the microphone to give us his “get re-acquainted” five-minute talk. BILL was born in Alabama on May 14, 1919. Being arithmetically challenged, I had to pull out my HP-12C to verify his ninetieth birthday was two weeks ago. Happy belated birthday, BILL. His talk touched on events some of us read about in history books: Lindbergh, the Great Depression (last century’s), WWII and a basic history of Naval aviation. Why, he even remembers when you could take the train from Rancho Shopping Center to San Francisco (which he did).

After BILL’s naval career, he went to work for GE, managed to get transferred to San Francisco and retired a good many years ago. Along the way, he built an electric car (a replica of the 1904 Merry Oldsmobile) in which his son learned to drive. As he says, he retired to volunteer and joined Rotary in order to meet his Los Altos neighbors.

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Past-Prez JOHN MOSS reminds us that President SETH’s Kick Out Dinner will be held on Friday, June 26th, at Los Altos Country Club. Your dinner cost is already covered, your guest/spouse’s isn’t. Sign up now to avoid that last minute rush.

Past-Prez SAM HARDING is back from China. He presented a banner from the Rotary Club of Rugby, England, to SETH. I just rechecked my notes; Sam was in China; he brought a banner from England. There must be more to the story. Ask SAM.

KENDRA GJERSETH is looking for Rotarians to sign up for the LARC Relay-for-Life Team. We walk on June 20th and 21st. Good spots are still available and going fast.

JULIE ROSE is promoting the last few spots at the 3rd annual State of the City Luncheon on June 10th, at Fremont Hills Country Club. Our own Past Prez STEVE ANDERSON will be presented with the Walter Singer Award at the lunch. Sign up now!

STEVE SHEPHERD was given five seconds to promote the annual golf tournament (which STEVE has yet to win) being held at Shoreline next Friday, June 5th. Dinner and the poker tournament will follow at Lakeside Café. This is the last fellowship event under the “Reign of SETH.” President SETH acknowledged STEVE for giving his shortest golf talk ever.

FIRST PROGRAM: YOUNG-AT-ART WINNERS

FRANK VERLOT took center stage to present the Young-at-Art Award Winners. This is the student artwork that was on display at the Art Show and at Northern Trust, Borel Bank, and Bank of the West.

Winners from Alta Vista: Kylie Medellin and Kaylinda Zapar; Art Coordinator Wendy Dowling

From Homestead: Sofya Vorotnikova and Aileen McDuff; Art Coordinator Carolyn Daily

From Los Altos HS: Arista Jusuf and Susanna Gao; Art Coordinator Christine An

From Mountain View HS: Kelsey Walker and Zachary Wilson; Art Coordinator Jim Levett

From Pinewood: Sarah Normoyle and Klaire Korver; Art Coordinator Casey Smith

From Community School of Music and Art: Mia Waldren and Fernando Martinez; Art Coordinator Kyle Williams

From St. Francis HS: Pamela Lau and Aaron Tsudushi; Art Coordinator Sylvan Adams

Congratulations to all the winners! Special thanks to the Art Jury and Committee: Chair FRANK VERLOT, GREG DABB, KENDRA GJERSETH, KAREN GESSERT and KATHY BERRY.

TEN MINUTE TALK

Red-Badger DAVID CASAS began by promising to see how close to five minutes he could make his ten-minute talk (there was a smattering of applause – you know who you are). DAVE took more than five but less than ten minutes to share a plethora of family pictures bearing testimony to the fact that he is a committed family man and proud papa. We also learned that his last name in Spanish means “houses,” which, I suspect, is a good thing for someone in the Real Estate business. He also looks like another PowerPoint wizard. Welcome, DAVE.

THE PROGRAM

RICH CASEY started the program by telling us about the Child AIDS Prevention event titled "Mothers, Babies and AIDs" on October 11, 2009. This is a program sponsored by Los Altos Rotary AIDS Project; save the date—more information will come as the date gets closer.

RICH then introduced two Stanford students, Austin Keeley and Dave Evans, who are enthusiastically promoting a project called "Ride Against AIDS and FACE AIDS."

Here’s aproject summary: “Ride Against AIDS is a unique, powerful and challenging way to raise awareness, funds and expand the FACE AIDS movement! This year, between June and August of 2009, a small team of riders will spend 10 weeks biking from Stanford, CA to Boston, MA, speaking with community groups, camps, Rotary Clubs, schools, FACE AIDS chapters, and individuals across the country about the FACE AIDS movement to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa. This ride will help FACE AIDS develop lasting relationships across the country, raise funds for Partners in Health in Rwanda, and inspire people across the U.S. to take action against AIDS!” The website is www.faceaids.org/raa.

These two young men are on the rowing team at Stanford and are truly dedicated to this project; so much so that they are committed to biking 4,474 miles to raise awareness about AIDS in Africa. Quite a challenge for a couple of guys who view rowing “as a sport where you sit down, go backwards for a mile, then stop” (their words). Good luck and best wishes, fellas!

Naturally, the Q&A portion was quite entertaining.

Future Fine Masters, please take note: For the second consecutive week, President SETH adjourned early. In the very humble opinion of this scribe, it’s a blatant attempt to avoid the fine he is sure to receive for being the first and only Rotary President to have his car towed from the Art Show. There must be an explanation!

Have a great day, all!

Correction to last week's Rotator: Linda Waud was incorrectly listed as a Greeter when, in fact, she was just greeting (small "g") and guiding fellow PNG members to their seats.

template updated: 06/27/08