The GREETERS:
08/30/2018 Matt Kuhn and Eric Beach
09/06/2018 Brad Thorp and Pat Beckel (Speaker will be Bill Shula)
09/13/2018 Deb Dulaney and Dave Trout
09/20/2018 Brian Hayes and Dick Hoback
09/27/2018 Doc Dave Herman and Mike Wier
10/04/2018 John Callander and Butch Spencer
Erich Beach (L) came wearing his yellow new member ribbon, but left without it, having
completed his new member commitments with his greeter duty this day. Matt Kuhn was
our second official greeter of the day. Carl Gill was absent.
Our official greeters had a surprise early arrival, Jeff Senney.
And just to be sure it was him, I took another picture.
The Pancake Breakfast Committee is hard at work. Tickets will be available for members
next week. The Breakfast is Oct. 27 at Centerville High School. Come one, come all...
This guest speaker from Charleston, South Carolina, has a Bombeck-like sense of humor
and gave a very entertaining story of how she managed to walk 444 miles by herself on the Natchez
Trace, with her 80-year-old father as her wingman.
This couple didn't want to disturb the Pancake Breakfast Committee meeting, so they waited
outside the meeting room at Yankee Trace on a very comfortable looking sofa. Don and Dottie
Overly are loyal members of the club and of UD basketball.
Inside the room Kim Senft-Paras has now joined the Overlys and Jim Harris at a dining room
table, ready to eat the soon-to-be served hamburgers and macaroni this day. Pie was apple,
cherry, or pecan. All very, very good..
This is a picture of a mystery woman. She likes to zoom past the camera and put up her
hand to block any paparazzi photos. Maybe she is an undercover agent or in the Federal
protection agency's files.
Or maybe it's just Ann Blackburn, who's not shy when it comes to getting new members to
join the club. Maybe just so she can stay out of the picture.
And here she is coming in again trying to beat the sound/sight barrier.
You would never believe how serious these guys can be. But get their attention for a photo,
and what do you get. Kids again forever. Dale Berry and Jim Briggs.
Erich with an "h" and Ray with his pal...two Erics/Erichs in the club. Which one comes to the
podium when called? You'll see, later.
And here comes Gerry Eastabrooks, our club treasurer. We all assume that's a coke in her
hand.
President-Elect Chuck King will preside over the meeting this day, as Boyd said last week
he would be absent today. There's Eric without an "h" still with is new member ribbon.
And Sally Beals arrived and joined Ann Blackburn and our guest.
Dave Trout moves fast to get a seat before the meeting begins.
Brad Thorp, who leads our GBA when he is around, always makes us sound really good.
A room with a view, or a view of the room. Take your pick.
Mark Febus (R )is doing a great job with the Interact Club at Centerville High School and will
give a report during the meeting about what they're up to this new school year.
The Centerville Rotary Club met at the Clubhouse at Yankee Trace at noon. Club President-Elect Chuck King led the Pledge of Allegiance; PDG Harvey Smith led the prayer, remembering the passing of Senator John McCain, and Brad Thorp led the singing of God Bless America.
The guests at this week's meeting included: our speaker Andra Watkins, from Charleston, S.C.;
Dottie Overly, wife of Don Overly; and Mariah Vogelgefang, the new Assistant City Manager for Centerville.
Here we see President-Elect Chuck King, standing in for Boyd Preston, our club president.
Announcements:
It was noted that club member Don Gerhardt fell and broke some ribs and is in Sycamore Hospital.
Chuck called "Eric" up to the podium, and "Erich" Eggers came up, thinking it was time for
Happy Bucks, him being Sgt.-at-Arms.
Instead, Chuck was looking for Eric without the "h," namely Eric Beach, who completed his
new member commitments this day, so he could remove his yellow ribbon and be considered
a full-fledged member. They had a good laugh at the slight mixup.
And here's President-Elect Chuck King congratulating Eric on the completion of the his new
member commitment.
And here's Eric without his yellow ribbon...Lots of movement here.
President Preston noted at an earlier meeting that World Polio Day is Oct. 24, two days after our Pancake Breakfast Fund-raiser at Centerville High School on Oct. 22. He said they are looking for ways for the club to celebrate World Polio Day.
President-Elect Chuck King reminded members of the Sept. 12 District Trilogy at Normandy Church, which will start at 5:30 p.m. It's a good opportunity to meet with other club members and see what they are doing, he said. A free meal comes with the invite. You can register online.
At the July 26 meeting the club agreed to change the 50/50 drawing.
President-Elect Chuck King explained the new system. Twenty cards will be pulled out of a deck of cards. Whoever has their number called will draw from the cards. If you get the Ace of Spades you win the pot. If not, the card is taken from the pile and no money is exchanged. The drawing gets bigger until someone draws the Ace of Spades. Then it goes back to the 20 cards again. The maximum the drawing can go is 20 weeks.
...Ron Hollenbeck had the winning ticket last week and wouldn't you know it, he drew the Ace of spades. Since he gave the money back to the pot, it started with $14 this week, Aug. 30.
Your Bulletin editor had the winning ticket this week, but drew a King of Hearts....the pot continues
to grow.
Vice President Frank Perez noted at our last meeting that our service days will be coming Tuesday Sept. 18 and sign-ups will begin in a few weeks. He said we're hoping for at least 45 members to participate.
Mark Febus said he has met with the Centerville teacher who is the advisor for the school's Interact Club and they decided that two members of the club's leadership group would come once a month on the fourth Thursday of the month to a Centerville Rotary Club meeting. They now have a gavel and a bell and will run their meetings more aligned with Rotary, he said. On Sept. 13 he will be meeting with the leadership team and Sept. 4 will see if they can get club members to sign up to help with the Pancake Breakfast fund-raiser. They also will have to decide on a global project, either the water pump or Girls Up, a feminine hygiene supplies project. They plan to work with Hannah's Treasure Chest again this year, but just have six members go each Thursday, rather than the whole group.
They have four dates set to go to the House of Bread, and hope to have five members of Rotary there too on those dates, Mark said.
Chuck said that while Brian Hayes was not here to talk about Operation Warm, he left a note saying that we're at 32 percent of our mark and still need another $5,000 to make our goal of 375 winter
coats this year.
The next board meeting will be on Sept. 17 at the Kennard Nature Nook, he said.
He mentioned that District Governor Bill Shula will be our guest speaker next week.
Past President Ron Hollenbeck gave an update on the Haiti water pump project and the global grant needed to complete it. He said the Northeast Cincinnati Rotary Club was the first to pledge $1,000. He said someone with the club said he would challenge the members, and if they would give another $1,000, he would match it, and they did and he did. The club then matched the $2,000, he said, so they have $5,000, which brings the amount pledged over the threshold needed to apply for the grant, to $17,500. He said the grant request would be made for six pumps, though he still has seven
clubs to visit and try to get pledges from. There could be seven or eight pumps when they go back to the people in Haiti and identify other locations. Ron said Frank Scott of the Dayton Rotary Club has been very instrumental in shepherding the project through word of mouth.
Mark Febus said that on Sept. 20 he would be presenting the project to the Interact Club at the high school.
Chuck said that next Wednesday he would be going to the Miamisburg Rotary and presenting more on Operation Warm, to help them see how it works. A member of Hannah's Treasure Chest will also be there to help explain the donation process.
HAPPY BUCKS: The Happy Bucks this quarter go to Operation Warm, and Brian Hayes said our goal is to buy 375 coats, which will cost $7,500.
Sgt.-at-Arms Erich Eggers collected the Happy Bucks along with Gerry Eastabrooks, our club treasurer.
Wayne Davis used his Happy Bucks to introduce the city of Centerville's new Assistant City
Manager, whose first day on the job it was. This is Mariah Vogelgefang (Birdcatcher in German)
Erich Eggers said an anonymous donor has offered a $1,000 challenge to the club, saying they would match what the club members get, and then he said another anonymous donor has also offered $1,000 in matching funds from club members.
Dick Hoback gave for a coat.
PDG Harvey Smith said he just celebrated his 85th birthday and therefore was donating for five coats. Adam Manning gave for a coat and Arnie Biondo gave for a couple coats. Carol Kennard gave,
ask all for healing thoughts for Don Gerhardt, who fell on a walk this week and is in Sycamore Hospital with broken ribs and also noting that she still had tickets for the Founder's Event honoring Joyce Young. It is Sept. 27 at 5:30
p.m., she said.
Ron Hollenbeck gave for a couple coats and mentioned his wife had not remembered their 25th anniversary, mainly because there is now a dog in her heart.
Eric Beach gave for being Happy. Then there was another donation for being happy, and Ray said he was giving for the other half of a coat.
Doug Bockrath gave and Doc Herman gave for five coats, thanking the Rotarians who donated for a special medical receptacle for stillborn babies that allow parents to spend three days with their babies rather than just two hours.
Sofie Ameloot gave for the Rotarians who sponsored her to ride in the Tour de Gem, the special bicycle Dayton area ride, over the holiday.
Lee gave to mention being at Eric's open house and for a half coat for our celebrated guest.
Dave Trout gave for a coat and John Beals gave for a coat and to mention the Kalaman golf outing coming up. Several others gave for a coat or half a coat, and Kim said she was just happy.
There was Jeff Senney, Ann and John and Sally, and Erich saying he would buy five coats for
Don inviting him to golf and another five coats for everyone, and so many more giving that they got lost...sorry..for missing some of the names.
This Week's Speaker: Andra Watkins, the author of four books, who hails from S. C.
She talked about how she came to write about one woman's 444 mile walk of the Natchez Trace with her 80-year-old dad as her wingman.
Club Vice President Frank Perez introduced our speaker.
Below you several pictures of the path she took.
Andra said her mom was from Eastern Kentucky and lived in Dayton for a while. She writes
in her book about a failed marriage and having three careers,starting with being a CPA, with
the last one sinking with the economy in 2007. Fifteen years ago she said she read the book Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose and learned about the true Meriwether Lewis and Clark.
She said she attended one of the worst school in Charleston, where in the eighth grade they
had to memorize a list of facts about history and history makers. She said in Undaunted
Courage she learned that Lewis and Clark, who were 20 year olds, "screwed their way across America," sleeping with the Native women, which the Indians liked because they thought it stilled their power. They wrote about this in their journals, she said. Their first editor redacted all of that. They took out all the salacious stuff that makes people human, she said.
There is still a dispute about how Meriwether Lewis died, she said. One says suicide and one says murder. He supposedly was depressed and was drinking and shot himself in the head and then in the gut.
He was really America's first scientist, but wasn't recognized for what he did until 1990, she said.
She said she wanted to write a book about Lewis and make stuff up, an unsolved thriller, but she couldn't get anyone to buy into the idea.
Then she got the idea in March, 2014 to walk the 444 mile Natchez Trace. She could see her book being picked by Oprah and being interviewed on the news or TV, and selling 100s or 1,000s of books. She would walk 15 miles a day.
"I had no idea how stupid I was," she said. It is a 10,000 year-old road. Ancestors from the 1700s and 1800s walked home on the trace, having sold their good going down river.
She would be walking it but she didn't want to rough it in tents and stuff. She wanted a Bed and Breakfast, a real bed. Her husband was her first choice for five weeks doing it. A girlfriend found it stressful, as he did, and one friend lasted four days. In the end, it was her 80-year-old "gaseous"
father, a "nightmare," embarrassing, with a gut sticking out and yellow teeth, who went with her. She was desperate for a New York Times Best Seller, she said. When she asked him, her dad said spending five weeks with her sounded horrible. But she convinced him that he would be able to tell all his stories which she had heard a thousand times, to others.
She started her tour in March, walking for two days in 20 degree weather and sleet in Southern Mississippi.
She said she had trained on dirt but ended up walking on cement. Part of the trace goes through a swamp, she said. Her hips and ankles quickly gave out.
There were two days in subzero temperatures, a tornado, hail, and a windstorm that blew her
into the highway.
Her dad forgot to pick her up at one of the stops. They had a holocaust of an argument about that, she said.
She got a stomach ache, had a phone but no cell signal, two squares of toilet paper when need arose once. She used Gatorade to clean up, a bad choice, she said. She collapsed in a field, but then realized there were thousands of daffodils around her. She realized how we go rushing though life every day to get finished, missing all the amazing things around us: thousands of birds, deer, a woodpecker stayed with her all day. Life is amazing every day, she said.
On April 3 she gave a talk to TV and newspaper. She sold a few copies of her book about the five weeks she spent with her father. "I'm passionate about people making memories.," she said. "Most say: I'll do it some day. I wish I had ...we all have regrets. Grab those people in their lives. We finally connected," she said of her father.
She encouraged everyone to "find your next adventure." She said she now has an incurable disease that is causing her to go blind in one eye, and that her father has been ill for the past several months. She had voodoo dolls to purchase along with books.
An added note from the Internet:
Captain Meriwether Lewis—William Clark’s expedition partner on the Corps of Discovery’s historic trek to the Pacific, Thomas Jefferson’s confidante, governor of the Upper Louisiana Territory and all-around American hero—was only 35 when he died of gunshot wounds sustained along a perilous Tennessee trail called Natchez Trace. A broken column, symbol of a life cut short, marks his grave.
But exactly what transpired at a remote inn 200 years ago this Saturday? Most historians agree that he committed suicide; others are convinced he was murdered. Now Lewis’s descendants and some scholars are campaigning to exhume his body, which is buried on national parkland not far from Hohenwald, Tenn.
“This controversy has existed since his death,” says Tom McSwain, Lewis’s great-great-great-great nephew who helped start a Web site, “Solve the Mystery,” that lays out family members’ point of view. “When there’s so much uncertainty and doubt, we must have more evidence. History is about finding the truth,” he adds. The National Park Service is currently reviewing the exhumation request.
The intrigue surrounding the famous explorer’s untimely death has spawned a cottage industry of books and articles, with experts from a variety of fields, including forensics and mental health, weighing in. Scholars have reconstructed lunar cycles to prove that the innkeeper’s wife couldn’t have seen what she said she saw that moonless night. Black powder pistols have been test-fired, forgeries
Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/meriwether-lewis-mysterious-death-144006713/#8vYuT2ygPLqbQf6T.99
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The four books by Andra Watkins.
The meeting was adjourned with the reciting of the 4-Way Test.
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