Los Altos Rotary Club Home of the Annual Rotary Fine Art Show March 6 2014

Greeters:  PAUL SCHUTZ and PAUL NYBERG
Cashiers:  PP DENNIS YOUNG and DAVID CASAS
Sargeants at Arms:  PAUL GONELLA
Photographer:  JERRY TOMANEK
Rotator Writer:  BARBARA SMALL
 
HAPPY 65TH BIRTHDAY LOS ALTOS ROTARY!.  As our club turns 65 years old, we celebrated in style at the Los Altos Country Club, enjoying a delicious lunch served on white tablecloths, as we were entertained with song and inspiring words and reflections of our club’s enjoying 65 years of service above self.
 
Thought for the Day was given by President JACK KELLY, reflecting upon his involvement with Rotary over the years, and how our club every week demonstrates through the service and acts of its members that “Service Above Self” can be integrated into one’s daily living.  President JACK referred to many of the members who have inspired and mentored him over the years, whose names I will not repeat here for fear of leaving even one person out, but suffice it to say there were many!  President JACK is delighted to be president of our club during its 65th birthday year, and we are delighted he is our leader.  Thank you for your inspiring thoughts on our club’s 65th birthday!   
 
Song for the Day:  Songmeister RON STEFANI led us all in a happy round of “Roll Out the Barrell,” word-smithed to refer to all the good cheer for our 65th year!
 

Visiting Rotarians:
Past LARC President, and Past District Governor GINNY LEAR visiting from Palo Alto Rotary Club.
Past Rotary International President and Special Guest RICHARD KING visiting from the Rotary Club of Niles, Fremont, California
 
Rotarians with Guests:
SAM HARDING brought his lovely wife, JANET.
PP MONA ARMISTEAD brought her dashing husband, BOB.
RON STEFANI brought his lovely wife, JANE.
FELIX HU, brought his lovely friend, TERI WATKINS.
PP DENNIS YOUNG introduced special guest State Senator JOE SIMITIAN, and his lovely wife, MARY HUGHES.
 

Announcements:
By the time this Rotarian is published, our members will have enjoyed the CIOPPINO FEED at the Garden house on Friday, March 7, 2011, with its live and silent auctions.  This writer staffed a project table at PETS and could not attend, so can’t wait to hear all about it! 
 
JOHN McDONNELL announced the 25th anniversary of Rotacare and a gala event on April 10 at the Santa Clara Marriott to celebrate the growth of Rotacare.  Rotarcare clinics were founded in 1989 by Dr. Mark Campbell with one clinic in Agnews State Hospital.  Today Rotacare clinics serve with clinics in Concord, Daly City, Gilroy, Half Moon Bay, Monterey, Mountain View, Pittsburg, Richmond, San Jose, San Leandro, San Rafael, and Santa Cruz.  For more information see rotacarebayarea.org.  Mark your calendars for the April 10 Gala Celebration for 25 years of service by Rotacare!
 
Past District Governor and now LARC member ARLEY MARLEY announced that, at the Area 10 Interact Fundraiser he attended, he won a raffle for a gift basket of specialty coffees, and wanted to pay it forward and raffle the basket at our meeting with the proceeds to be donated to LAREF.  After a brief but spirited auction round, the basket went to winner WYATT ALLEN for $200, with a matching $200 donated by ARLEY for a total donation to LAREF of $400.
 

Special Paul Harris Presentation to Joe Simitian
PP DENNIS YOUNG was joined by PP’S MARY PROCHNOW and ROY LAVE, and by Special Guest, former State Senator and now County Supervisor, Joe Simitian.  PP DENNIS described how MR. Simitian has lived the motto: “Service Above Self” in his years of service to the people of the state and districts that he serves. 

PP’s ROY, DENNIS, and MARY each made a donation of their accumulated Recognition Points on the behalf of JOE, and presented JOE with the Paul Harris pin and certificate.  With that, Joe Simitian joins the family of 950,000 Paul Harris fellows, including Mother Theresa.  Joe kindly thanked our club for the dedication and humbly acknowledged “it is the only time that he, Joe Simitian and Mother Teresa, also a Paul Harris Fellow recipient, will probably ever be uttered in the same sentence.”  Thanks, JOE, for being a regular attendee and featured speaker at our club meetings and congratulations on becoming a Paul Harris Fellow! 
 

PP JACK KELLY took a moment to acknowledge all of the Past Presidents of our club, and announced that a group photo of for all of the Past Presidents will be taken at the end of the meeting.
 
President JACK KELLY took a few moments, in honor of LARC’s 65th birthday, to acknowledge some historically interesting facts about our club.  Our club was born out of the Mountain View Los Altos Rotary Club which, having grown to a certain size, it was determined the club should divide into two clubs.  So the club took a vote and the Los Altos Rotary Club was born.  The first club banner of LARC showed the American Flag, the Rotary Wheel, and a black line above the words Los Altos Rotary Club.  The black line hid the words “Mountain View” as the club had not yet been able to create its own banner!  Now, at 65 years of age, our club is healthier than ever.  At 179 members, our club is four times the size of the average club across the U.S. and Canada.
 
President JACK introduced Songmeister RON STEFANI, who gave us a very special birthday song dedicated to all of our club members and past members, a beautiful rendition of the song “For Good” from the musical “Wicked.” 
 
PP JACK KELLY also announces the PETS at the Double Tree Hotel on First Street in San Jose, taking place from Thursday evening through Saturday evening.  Our own President Elect KENDRA GJERSETH will be attending and several of our members will be staffing the project booths.
 

Presentation:
PP JACK KELLY introduced special guest speaker Richard D. King.  Richard D. King is a past Rotary International President, and the senior partner in the California law firm King, King & King. A Rotarian since 1968, Richard D. King has been a leader in Rotary, serving virtually every level. As a former President of Rotary International, he has been honored for his personal contributions to goodwill and understanding in the world.  Mr. King is one of Rotary's most popular speakers.  As President, he led Rotary International to the greatest one-year growth in its 105-year history. In the same year, Rotarians contributed the highest amount of money ever raised for the Annual Fund of the Rotary Foundation.
 
Mr. King began his talk with accolades to songmeister RON STEFANI, saying “it is great to hear a lawyer sing!”  Mr. King then fondly told the story of how he could not turn down President JACK KELLY’s email invitation to come speak to our club, after all, President JACK had given him an entire week’s notice. 
 
Mr. King then relayed the funny story of how, after a speech he gave in Nairobi, Kenya, a 10 year old boy stood in line twice just to tell Mr. King “that is the worst speech I ever heard.”  Upon stating this for the second time Mr. King inquired about the comment and the boy said: “I’m just repeating what I heard others in the audience saying!” 
 
Honestly, though, this was this writer’s first time hearing Mr. King speak and I can honestly say one will rarely see a more polished speaker in command of his audience.  Mr. King went on to pay tribute to those from whom he learned how to speak, naming our own DICK HENNING.  Mr. King also paid tribute to dearly departed LARC members BOO BUE and MARY MARLEY.  Mr. King then delighted us with a poem about what reincarnation means.  In the context of a story about dinner on the Nile river with a former Egyptian army general, Mr. King reminded us how today, because of ROTARY, cross cultural clubs gather together former opposing peoples to overcome their differences and forge efforts to do good in the world.  Mr. King stated that of the forms of capital contributed by the United States to the world, Social Capital – the coming together to make the world a better place – is our greatest capital contribution.     From American’s joining together to form ROTARY and giving the world its first service organization, many other service clubs followed:  Kiwanis, Lions, Optimists, etc.   Mr. King referred to a quote from Albert Schweizer in the Rotarian, one finds the embodiment of the more truly human man / woman.  Our club is grateful to Mr. King for his inspiring words share on our club’s 65th birthday!
 

Final Note:  Last Friday was our Annual Cioppino Dinner, with proceeds benefiting the Foothill College Veterans Resource Center.   Here are several pictures taken by LINA BROYDO.  Check the following link for an additional 20 or so pictures on our website under Albums marked "2014 Annual Cioppino Dinner.
 
 
   

Mary Wadden, the author of “Silicon Valley: The History in Pictures,” contains over 400 photos, old advertisements, and artful postcards which were gathered from over 50 sources both public and private.

Why is Silicon Valley different than any other place on earth and how did it get to be this way?’  This book is an engaging answer to this question as the book tracks the evolution of Santa Clara Valley from the days of the gold rush through present day.

The author is a thirty three year old native of Los Altos who attended St. Francis High School. After attending college at the University of San Diego, she returned to the Bay Area and has spent her adult life as a prominent commercial real estate broker in Silicon Valley, currently serving as an Associate Vice President for Cassidy Turley.