Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
February 3, 2014
Sgt. Matt Coleman, a member of the National Guard who had
recently returned from Afghanistan, led the flag salute. Craig Hansen gave the invocation, and
returning Former exchange student Jamie Carroll asked us to send letters,
thoughts and prayers to Teresa Sims.
Guests
Judge Brown from Fortuna was our only visiting Rotarian.
Interact students Grace and Jordan came to the podium to
tell us about an upcoming fundraiser to support a trip.
Greg Seiler announced that the theme for this year’s Rotary
Raffle would be “Bootlegger’s Ball II - Rotarian’s Revenge”. It will be held May 5th at the
Ingomar Club.
Gregg Gardiner and Tom McMurray Jr. teamed up to introduce
this years “Service Above Self” Award.
Larry Ratliff, vocational coordinator for Teen Challenge, received a
Paul Harris Fellowship in his name.
He
and his crew of 45 spent thousands of hours rehabilitating Winship Middle
School’s grounds. Ratliff also does a jail ministry and works at the Rescue
Mission.
Then it was time for
“recognition.”
Dennis Hunter was fined $100 for receiving a lifetime
achievement award at the recent Eureka Chamber Dinner. President Ziggy also had a photo of Dennis dressed
in 49er Gear at the Seattle vs 49ers game.
Murl Harpham was spotted in the audience attired in civilian
clothes.
He retired two weeks ago and no
longer packs a pistol.
Ziggy commended
him on his 57 years on the force, and gave him an additional item of apparel, a
Rotary T-shirt.
Mike Cunningham had a box of framed photos from recent
Rotary Christmas Parties. Sally Arnot, Burt Campton, John Bradley, Matt Owen
and Tom Schallert retrieved their portraits -for a handling fee of $25.
While they were picking them up Ziggy relieved Greg
Williston of $50 for being Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce Board.
Finally, Tom McMurray was singled out for a planned trip to
the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
He said it was on the way from Oslo to Jerusalem and anyway he liked raw
fish.
When Ziggy informed him that it
was “Sochi” not “sushi”, Tom looked disappointed.
Gregg Gardiner returned to the podium to distribute United
States Marine Corps Commander Awards to those who had gone the extra mile in
helping Toys For Tots.
They included
Nancy Dean, Dennis Hunter Patrick Cleary, Paula Patton, and, weighing in at a
trim 200 pounds, wearing tan slacks and an oxford shirt that brought out the
blue in his eyes, the handsome Hank Ingham-but enough about me.
Wait.
I didn’t win the raffle.
OK. Now
I’m done.
President Ziggy introduced our speaker for the day, Sergeant
Matt Coleman of the National Guard. He
shared pictures of his recent tour in Afghanistan. For his first three months he provided
security for gravel Trucks. He escorted
them over a 20 mile stretch of what is called “The Heart Of Darkness in the
Kandahar province. Then he built
bridges, sometimes using the same type of pontoon floats you see loaded on the
back of trucks at our local Armory. Some
projects were completed in as little as 55 hours. The main threat was the IED. They also
experienced sandstorms that turned the sky black and stopped the whole
convoy.
He was thankful that he and his unit completed their tour
unscathed, but felt guilty that so many others had not been as lucky.
He said that for some, it was hard to find
jobs when they came back.
He knew some
who suffered from PTSD.
When there were
no more questions, the meeting was adjourned.
Submitted by the natty Hank Ingham [note: raw fish is
actually sashimi, but “sushi” is funnier.]
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