Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show May 27 2010

The meeting was rousingly begun by President TRACIE at exactly 12:15. Our greeters were: ALLAN VARNI, TOM LISTON and KAREN OWEN. The Rotator writer is yours truly, STEVE ANDERSON and STEVE YARBROUGH. Both wrote notes, but I cut Steve a break. The thought for the day was presented by DICK HENNING and, in part; there is no difference between a gazelle and a lion. They both begin their day in the same way thinking they have to run faster than the other. It was a very important parable but you had to be there.

There were many guests today including Dan Harding, son of SAM (that sounds crime-like), and my table mate Bob Goetsch from Hayward and a special visitor from Deli India, who presented his club banner, and eventually wanted to know about our fining session. I think things are going to get more expensive in his home club when he returns.

JEANNE MAC VICAR gave us quite the run down on Relay For Life which is in its 7th year and is coming up on 6/12. CINDY LUEDTKE was the LARC President the first year of Relay when the “Rotary Ramblers” was formed. This year, the Rotary Ramblers are off to a great start. A DJ will open the ceremonies at 10:00 AM at Egan School to be followed by singers, dancers, and a magician. Saturday night will be a limbo contest, hula hooping, dancing, etc. A twelve year old boy who is a 10-year cancer survivor will release doves at 10:00 AM. Our camp will be in the grassy central infield area of the track. It will be fun for all but the most important fact is that it will be about the money: to raise money for cancer research. Several Rotarians stood and told of their bouts with cancer and it was a very touching time.

District Governor Loren Harper Visits!

District Governor, LOREN HARPER took over the mike and acknowledged special awards that Rotarians ALLART LIGTENBERG and DICK CUMMINGS? were given at the District Conference last month. Since we don’t have a CUMMINGS on our roster and since DICK HENNING was known to have to have received a Service above Self award last month, we will have to assume LOREN misspoke. He also honored MARLENE COWAN and JACK KELLY for their work on the STRS District Leadership Training Program, and the District Speech Contest, respectively.

PP SAM PESNER gave a report on the silent auction that will happen next week. Information about the items will be sent out this week by e-mail. Proceeds from the auction will go to LAREF.

STEVE SHEPHERD, our erstwhile chairman of the golf committee tourney announced that our golf group is full, no more room for hopeful golfers. Your scribe happens to be aware of the fact that there is now one opening for a man and one for a woman now available. Talk to STEVE SHEPHERD, if you have interest in joining in the golf game on the morning of June 4th. The dinner and poker game are still open for more members to join in. That’s a lot of fun and I urge red badgers to come to this event. It’s cheap and you can pay upon arrival.

PP SETH announced that there WILL be a transition/kick-out of President TRACIE. His committee is working hard on this to make it a memorable event for all.

Sunshine Committee Chair BEVERLY TUCKER passed around cards for two Rotarians who have had surgery in the past week: JACK HEIDMILLER and BUD OLIVER who have both gone under the knife. JACK’s was planned and BUD had emergency open heart surgery. Both are doing well today. It was also announced DWIGHT MATTHEWS is doing well after prostate surgery.

It's a FINE Day with Kurt!

KURT HUEG our man who states “it’s about the money” did a fine job as fine master. The following members were fined for various events in their lives:

STEVE POMEROY fined $20 for his good work at the art show.

PRES. TRACIE was fined $15 to get into her own President’s Club, with the announcement of her 15-year wedding anniversary.

SAM HARDING was fined $10 for his new granddaughter McKinley Harding Adams, whose sister is named Quincey Adams Harding. Looks like a couple of “presidential candidates” in the works here.

BILL MOISON was fined an unspecified amount for his new granddaughter and beating his own cancer which was discovered in 1956.

Bill’s twin, JERRY MOISON, ponied up with his brother to join the President’s Club.

PP CINDY LUEDTKE was fined for her successful ground-breaking of the Day Worker Center earlier in the week, her 30-year wedding anniversary, and her son, Matt’s, recent Eagle Scout award. Her mom’s breast cancer has returned and our prayers go out to her.

MIKE STADLEN was fined for his 43rd anniversary and his son’s graduation from Haas Business School.

PAT FARRELL was fined even though he is a 30-year melanoma survivor, but HUEG mercifully fined him only $1.

BILL PALMER was fined for his birthday for $50. If my memory is correct he is 93 years old this year.
Red Badger, GARY WALDECK, was fined for his grandson Matthew’s graduation from high school in Plano,Texas. GARY also shared he is a cancer survivor as of one year ago.

SHAWN KELLEY was fined $100 to go directly to President’s Club and not to have to stop at “GO”.
The coup de gras, however, was DAVID CASAS who has been MIA for 2-3 months. He forked up $300 to go to the head of the fining class. He had a formula for what was owed and it was $20 times the number of meetings he missed.

Finally, VON PACKARD was fined $60 to put him up to date with his brother RON.

This Week's Program: Young at Art

Our program for the day was brought to us by our own FRANK VERLOT. FRANK has done just a fabulous job with the Young at Art program of our own art show. He and his jury of: GREG DABB, KENDRA GJERSETH, MARLIS MCALLISTER, JANE REED and STEVE YARBROUGH picked our youth winners and were shown to us by our new fancy ceiling mounted projector. We are HIGH TECH!
Our winners by school were:

ALTA VISTA: Wendy Dowling, Dee Pei, and Megan Wilbur
COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND ART: Andrianna Negus and Kerry Fudenberg
HOMESTEAD HIGH SCHOOL: Yurka Tanamura and Montana Vieros
LOS ALTOS HIGH SCHOOL: Even Surilo and Emily Gaverick
MOUNTAIN VIEW HIGH SCHOOL: Cecelia Villacis and Jason Farwell
PINEWOOD HIGH SCHOOL: Sara Brenneman and Taylor Smith-Hame
ST. FRANCIS HIGH SCHOOL: Evan Coutre and Justine Law

Special kudos to the exhibitors who have had these winners up in their banks for the past few weeks: STEVE SHEPHERD, JOANNE KAVALARIS, and STEVE FICK. Also, thanks to CRES McFALL, for our demo wires which were ingenious for our display of this wonderful art.

Fin!