Here is Ray Merz, our other official greeter for the day, with Jack.
Here Ray Merz and Butch Spencer chat a bit on Butch's arrival.
Didn't catch that our guest closed his eyes just as the camera opened its lense. Montgomery County Engineer Paul Gruner is seen with Boyd Preston and Chuck Smith.
Here Ray Merz is talking with Bob Fry, who has just arrived.
John Callander is seen here with his son John C. Callander and his wife Barbara. Our club member John has honored his daughter-in-law Barbara this day with a Paul Harris award. His son is seen wearing his Paul Harris award from an earlier honor.
Brian Hayes gets a hardy welcome from Boyd.
Kim Paras-Senft and Adam Manning also get added greetings at the door.
Harvey Smith has come in with another guest, Sanam de Lorme, who came to bring a message from one of our newer members, Doctor Dave Herman. She brought thanks and appreciation for Rotary members responding to the news of the loss this past week of Doctor Dave and his wife's baby. She is office administrator for Dr. Herman, a local chiropractor who just moved to the area with his wife Lauren.
Frank Perez gets a double greeting.
Rebecca Quinones and her mom Kathy Rosen arrive. Rebecca is soon to move to Washington D.C. with her family and mom, who lives in Cincinnati, plans to visit with them there.
And don't they look more like sisters, than mom and daughter? You bet!
And here they are looking into the dining area.
Looks like an all-boys club here, but that's not the case. They're just hungry.
And you can guess this guest's heritage by his last name. Andrew Mitakides is of Greek heritage.
He came as the guest of Katie Neubert, and to bring the message that he is co-chair of the Out of Darkness Suicide Awareness Walk on Oct. 21 of this year. It is being presented by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
The Centerville Rotary Club met at The Golf Club at Yankee Trace at noon. Club President-Elect Boyd Preston led the Pledge of Allegiance; PDG Harvey Smith gave the prayer, noting that a past district governor, Chuck Sweeney from Urbana, has passed away; and Brad Thorp led the singing of God Bless America. Another grand rendition by the club.
The guests at this week's meeting included:
Frank Scott, from the Dayton Rotary Club; Sanam de Lorme, office administrator for Dr. Dave Herman; Kathy Rosen, mother of Rebecca Quinones; and Andrew Mitakides, of Rogers McNay, who came as co-chair for Out of Darkness Suicide Awareness Walk, to be held Oct. 21, sponsored by the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
President-Elect Boyd Preston presided over today's meeting.
Dayton Rotarian Frank Scott came to announce a proposed awarding of a Rotary global grant scholarship for Kim Forrester, who hopes to attend the London School of Economics. She was a former exchange student in the Rotary Youth Exchange who went to Brazil for her project during her senior year of high school, he said.
Frank said the matter was brought before our club's board in March, which approved being her sponsor.
Frank said $58,000 will be needed for her scholarship and they are asking other districts for district contributions, and the districts would need to come up with $30,000 to get a match of $30,000 from the grant. Frank said the Rotary Foundation believes Kim to be a very strong candidate for the grant, but whether or not $30,000 can be raised by September is the question.
Cards were put on the sign-in table to sign for Dr. Herman and his wife Lauren, who lost their baby boy, Lincoln Matthew, born April 13, nine days early, and Brad Huffman sent out an e-mail notifying Club members of the news and a GoFundMe page set up on the Internet to help with funeral expenses. He said the Heart of Centerville had set up a meal train for the family, and Brad sent out an e-mail explaining how you can sign up to provide a meal. A funeral service at the graveside was scheduled for Friday at noon at David's Cemetery.
Sanam de Lorme said she came to bring a thank you from Dr. Dave and his wife Lauren for the donations and prayers for them, noting that they really appreciated all of that.
Pat Beckel then spoke about the annual Spring event and Fund-raiser, Trace of Hearts, scheduled for April 26 from 6 p.m to 9 p.m. at the Yankee Trace Clubhouse. Tickets are $25, which includes a dinner buffet, basket raffle and cash bar.
Pat said it's called Boutiques & Brews, and is a date night out with music, games and fun. It's a time to mix and mingle, he said. You can visit the vendors' booths and find out if you and your spouse are compatible or not, and how you might off one another if desired, without getting caught. There's a dating game and a dig for diamonds, and a bachelor and bachelorette auction.
Pat used the Overlys as his example of a couple who might look into whether or not they might have done better in their choice of a mate. If you know them, you know better, but Pat likes to josh a bit, and is seen with the Overlys in a photo at the top of this bulletin.
Peachy said at a previous meeting that the memorial service regarding our past three members will occur at the May 17th meeting at the Kennard Nature Nook.
The District Conference April 27/28 will be held in Springfield and the shampoo donations are for the hygiene kits, some of which will be brought back to the club for distribution to charity.
The conference will be held at the Hollenbeck Baylay Center. Instead of last year's basket presentations from each club, they want to do a district project and put together hygiene kits. Each club can then choose a charity to distribute the kits to.
Peachy said you can register on-line via e-mail. The event will be a fun-casual event with food trucks and tours of the Heritage Museum, etc. and a kids camp on Saturday.
The District Conference Golf Outing at Reid Park Golf Club begins at 8:30 a.m. April 27.
Peachy mentioned at a previous meeting that the Kettering Rotary Club will be holding a benefit for Multiple Sclerosis in honor of Andy Scholes from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. April 28 at Romer's Bar & Grill, with music and entertainment by Ryan Roth. There's a 50/50 raffle Romer's appetizers and a cash bar. Tickets are $20.
President-Elect Boyd Preston called up member John Callander who honored his daughter-in-law Barbara Callander with a Paul Harris Fellow this day. Rotary Foundation representatives Harvey Smith and Joyce Young did the honors of presentation.
Barbara received a certificate and a Paul Harris pin to mark the occasion.
HAPPY BUCKS: The Happy Bucks this quarter go to help the Brunner Literacy Center, which tutors adults 19 and older in reading, writing, and math skills, etc.
Erich Eggers, our Sgt.-at-Arms, called for the Happy Bucks, collected by our club treasurer Gerry Eastabrooks.
Brad Thorp gave his Happy Bucks for a vacation in California where he will play four rounds of golf in five days. Golfers in the club showed some envy at the thought.
Chuck King, our vice president, said a $1,500 grant applied for from the Centerville-Washington Foundation has been granted to help pay for the dictionaries and thesauri we donate to area schools.
Frank Scott gave for being invited to come to the club, and our guest speaker Paul Gruner gave for being happy to be here.
Ray Merz gave for his contribution to the upcoming library book sale next weekend. He mentioned the names of some esoteric books dealing with history, that did include Prince Charles in one.
Lee Hieronymus gave a dollar to not sing the Wilmington fight song, as he did last week. Some club members did not think this was enough.
Carol Kennard gave $5 for the volunteer help that made the memorial grove at Kennard Nature Nook presentable for the upcoming memorial for our three recently deceased Rotarians. She named the volunteer helpers as Brad Thorp, Bob Fry, Ray Merz, Arnie Biondo and his wife Nancy, and John Beals. They helped clean up, plant flowers, and mulch.
Mark Balsan gave $20 for Dr. Herman; and Harvey gave, noting that Adam Manning was on TV doing some cooking. He said he didn't hear any reference to Rotary or see his Rotary pin, and thought he might owe a fine for the omission, but then he offered to pay the fine for Adam as he said Adam helped arrange a nice dinner party for him at the restaurant (Carrabba's) recently.
Jim Harris gave for the literacy program and said that Adam Manning projects well for our club.
John Callander gave $2, one for each of his guests.
Pat Beckel gave and then then added $2 more for his boys doing well at nationals, one receiving four of six medals, and the other three of six, all in gymnastics.
Gerry Eastabrooks gave $5 for heading off on an exotic vacation in TC.
Brian Bergman said he had a dozen roses to give away.
Brad Thorp gave for Dr. Herman and his wife Lauren.
Brian Hayes gave $2, one for hearing Adam's commercial and one for his son getting accepted into the Cincinnati Christian University.
Kim Senft-Paras gave a Happy $20 for her youngest running the Boston Marathon in a 40 mph headwind, and cold, in three hours 35 minutes and 32 seconds. She also thanked Ray for mentioning the library book sale, to be held Thursday, Friday and Saturday. She said they have had 13 applications for the Rotary scholarships, and that a meeting would be held Friday at 4:30 p.m. in the Centerville Library with those helping with the selection of scholars.
Dan Johnson gave for the Hermans, and Don Stewart gave $20, mentioning the Miami Valley Literacy Council.
This Week's Speaker: Paul Gruner, Montgomery County Engineer
Chuck King introduced our speaker, a Dayton Rotary Club member, among many other things.
Chuck said:
Paul Gruner grew up in Kettering and graduated from Fairmont West High School. He attended the University of Cincinnati where he obtained BSCE and MS degrees.
He worked in the Montgomery County Engineer's Office for six years, 27 years at Woolpert, Inc., where he was a partner, and for four years as a Senior Vice President at Gresham, Smith and Partners.
In 2010 he returned to the Montgomery County Engineer's Office, was appointed County Engineer in 2011, and was elected County Engineer in 2012 and 2016. The County Engineer is responsible for 320 miles of county roads and 514 bridges.
Chuck said Paul is currently the president of the County Engineers Association of Ohio and was the National Association of County Engineers' Urban County Engineer of the Year for 2016.
He has held leadership positions in a number of civil engineering and transportation associations at the local and state level.
Paul is married with two adult children and a granddaughter.
He is a member of the Dayton Rotary Club and Chair of the DPS Subcommittee of the Education Committee. He is also on the Board of We Care Arts as a former President of the Board.
Paul gave a brief history of the County Engineer's Office, as seen on this slide.
This was what he described next:
He said funding comes from road user fees, vehicle registration fees, with some Federal funding and Ohio Public Works Commission funding.
The bonding program is renewed every ten years. It was last renewed in 2015, with 65 percent.
The office deals with state, county, township and municipality issues. It deals with all county roads and bridges and does the engineering for the townships which are not charter townships. For municipalities it only does bridges, and not roads. In the downtown he said one half the bridges are the counties to oversee and one half the city's.
He said they deal with storm water drainage and road right of way and coordinate with the other agencies. In rural areas they do the same. In 2017 they worked on the widening of N. Dixie Drive and widened Yankee Street in a project with Centerville paying 75 percent of the cost by Yankee Trace.
While they do 514 bridges, they do 1,500 culverts and maintenance operation, and plow in winter. They also deal with bridges over creeks like the Twin Creek and Wolfe Creek and Holes Creek and bridges over the Still Water and Mad River, etc. In the urban area they can have three and four and five lane bridges. He said Montgomery County is second in the state for brick deck area (length times width). It has 1,344,803 deck area.
There are weight restrictions on 12 bridges and 23 bridges have had structural deficiencies.
Revenue from user fees has only increased 8 percent since 1989, he said. There are no sales, income, or property taxes that provide funding.
In 2017 the Ohio legislature approved adding $5 as a new permissive tax for county roads and bridges to the license fee starting Jan. 1, 2019. It will mean $2 million a year for us, he said.
When they had a hearing on the issue, no one showed up to speak against the issue.
He listed a number of recent bridge repairs and maintenance in 2017, including one on Alex-Bell Road over Holes Creek, one on Stroop Road over Little Bear Creek, the Jamaica Road Bridge in Germantown, the Diamond Mill Bridge, Valley Pike. The Mad River Road Bridge just south of Alex Bell Road will need replacement in a couple years, he said.
In 2018 the Keowee St. Bridge on the Great Miami River will be replaced. The Fishburg Road Bridge will need a rehab, he said. In 2019 the Third Street Bridge over the Great Miami River will be a $20 million project, he said. He named several other bridges that have been worked on and others in the future. One on Harshman Road over the Mad River near the Air Force Museum has shown to be award worthy, he said.
The meeting was closed with the reciting of the Rotary Four-Way Test.
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