Bulletin: Santa Rosa West Rotary Club

President Rich Standard opened our meeting at 12:30 p.m. with an enthusiastic comment about the beauty of the day and an observation that today was the anniversary date of the famous ride of Paul Revere.

The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Roger Olson. Carson Mitchell gave a succinct prayer, about ten words in length but deep in meaning. Chris Paar then introduced 17 visiting Rotarians, including a gentleman from Wichita, Kansas.

Rotarians with Guests:

Paul Stychno introduced his special guest, Alex Perez, Joe's son, who will be going to Denmark this summer to begin a fabulous year there as our Rotary Youth Exchange student. Bob Zeni introduced his special guest, Laurie Chamberlain, a Counselor at Piner High School, who accompanied the three Piner Outstanding Students of the Month also at his table. Bob Lucas introduced four special guests, his sister, Betty, and her husband, Chuck, who came from their home in Billings, Montana to attend the Lucas Celebration Benefit yesterday; Lois Tanner, the vocalist in Bob's band for many years and a principal organizer of the Benefit; and Jack Tigres, a long-time friend of Bob's and a singer who also performed at the Benefit. Bill Dodson introduced his special guest, Angie Campbell, an architect in his firm.

Announcements

President Rich read from a letter from Rotary International President Jim Lacy appealing to all Rotarians around the world to donate to a specific Rotary account established with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva, Switzerland to provide immediate humanitarian relief to the hundreds of thousands of refugees in the Balkans. Contributions will provide food, medical items, water supply and sanitation materials, among other emergency needs. You can contribute directly to this fund by sending payment to:
Account Number CO-183,222.8--Rotary HPCPB
UBS SA
P.O. Box 2770
CH-1211 Geneva 2
Switzerland

Mike Merrill, our esteemed District Governor to be, gave a report on the District Assembly in Ukiah this past weekend. There were 245 attendees from around District 5130 at the Saturday sessions and about 100 attended the Friday night dinner. Mike thanked our club members whose special efforts made the District Assembly so successful, including Bob Marigo, Bob Zeni, Phil Talamantes, Ken Dansie, Dale Sipe, Bob Harris, Chris Paar, Faye Talamantes, and cheerleader Janet Codding.

Jim Hinton announced that our incoming Rotary Youth Exchange student will be from Chile and she will arrive sometime this summer to begin a great year as a student in a Santa Rosa High School. Jim appealed to the members to become host parents. For the year, three host homes are needed, each about 3-4 months in duration. Sign-ups will be solicited over the next couple weeks. Please open your homes for this very significant Rotary program newly begun in our club.

Janet Codding announced that Kid's Street Theater will be performing a Mother's Day show. Janet has tickets.

Cindy Pilar, Director of Community & Communication Services of the Santa Rosa School District, gave an overview of the new standards in mathematics and language arts proposed for implementation in the Santa Rosa City Schools. The District seeks input from all community sources, and Cindy provided draft copies of the Benchmark Set in Mathematics for review. April 1999 is the public review period for the standards. She also provided a newspaper entitled "Helping Students Achieve," which contains additional information about standards envisioned for all students in Santa Rosa City Schools.

The Santa Rosa-Kagoshima Student Exchange Program is accepting applications for students to travel to Japan for 4 weeks over the Summer of 1999. The trip is subsidized by the Santa Rosa Sunrise Group as well as Rotary Groups from Hiroshima and Kagoshima Group, Friends of Kagoshima and Santa Rosa Businesses. The cost for each student is only $1,900.00. Applications must be in by April 16, 1999. Contact Mary Haller at 538-0950 or Fern Harger at 539-8030 for more details.

For a message from the G.S.E. team in the Philippines and a description of their adventures click here.

Projects Updates

Your Santa Rosa West Rotary contributes to many local community causes and issues. This last year we made contributions to programs through the Luther Burbank Center and the Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, to make the arts more accessible to children and the disadvantaged. For more details click here.

Another project we donated to was to help build another examination room for the Southwest Children's Health Center. To see a letter from Kathy Pierson of the Southwest Children's Health Center, to Jim Valinoti, updating us on the Project, click here.

Bob Lucas Celebration Benefit

It was an outpouring of love and admiration for Bob Lucas yesterday, when about 1,000 friends gathered at the Friedman Center to celebrate his life and music. Bob (left) thanked our club for sponsoring and organizing this great event, which featured jazz from northern California's finest musicians and vocalists.

Janet Codding (right), the Chair of the Benefit, thanked the many club members who contributed their services to create a fantastic afternoon, including Bill Fisher, Bob Reinking, Ginny Pitts, Mike Moore, Chris Paar, and Mark Decker.

Lois Tanner, Bob's vocalist, announced that the net proceeds were $22,279, and with CD's still available for sale the potential net proceeds could swell to more than $36,000--all of which will be used for Bob's medical expenses in his battle against leukemia.

Outstanding Students of the Month

Bob Zeni introduced three Outstanding Students of the Month from Piner High School, and each of them gave a summary of their high school achievements and their future plans. Victoria Futch has concentrated in environmental subjects at Piner and she plans to pursue a major in Environmental Studies at Northland College in Wisconsin. Gary Miyasaki has been accepted at UC Davis next year, where he plans a Life Sciences major. His goal is to become a physical therapist. Brian Schumacher has a cumulative 4.0 GPA and Honors in mathematics. He will attend Sonoma State University next fall, where he plans a major in Computer Science or Engineering.

Raffle

Paul Stychno held the winning raffle ticket for the chance to draw the yellow (or is it gold?) marble from the bag for a $1,080 prize, but he plucked the wrong color. (Maybe he should have had Janet draw for him).

Program--A Rotary Youth Exchange Student From Sweden:

Alan Anspach, President of the Petaluma Valley Rotary Club, introduced Catherine Forschhiemer, his club's Youth Exchange student from Sweden. Al was also one of Cathy's host parents in Petaluma, and he was a very proud father when he said that she was now one of his daughters.

Cathy talked for about twenty minutes, in beautiful English, without any apparent notes, and captivated us within just a couple minutes. She recounted her experiences in preparing for her year away from home, her flight to San Francisco during which she learned some important new words and expressions ("Dude" and "What's Up?"), her nervousness as she got off the plane to meet her first host family, and how thrilled she was to be in America. She described a terrific year with her three host families and her new friends and activities at Petaluma High School. She found that when she said "hello" everybody talked to her. She loved American traditions such as Halloween, when she carved her first pumpkin. She also found Americans to be very relaxed and friendly, self-confident, and open-minded--and they laugh and give hugs!

Let me know at DRBjork@thegrid.net or
phone (707) 576-7632 or fax (707) 576-7672.

Santa Rosa West Coming up

April 19, 1999

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