Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
December 21, 2015
Lunch Menu: salad bar, beef
stroganoff, noodles, fried fish, scalloped potatoes, rolls. Called to order by
President Jay Bahner at 12:30pm. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Ken
Stodder. The Invocation was led by Greg Pierson.
VISITING ROTARIANS: None.
GUESTS OF ROTARIANS: None.
STUDENT GUESTS: None.
BIRTHDAYS: Chuck Ellsworth, Richard Borough,
Russ Harris, Virginia Bass, Walt Shimasaki, Hank Ingham, Wendy Purnell.
ANNIVERSARIES: Sean McLaughlin, Doug Lanning,
Dan Heinen.
ANNOUNCEMENTS: Matthew Owen announced that the
Annual Fundraiser will be Saturday, February 20th. The dinner will be held at the Humboldt
County Department of Education’s new conference center. There will be $5,000 in cash prizes. He is looking for prizes. If you can help
please let him know. 
RECOGNITIONS: John Burger was asked by
President Jay if he had any confessions to make. Eventually we learned that John had recently
traveled to Santa Barbara, where he owns a second house. They had Thanksgiving
scheduled with his kids. His son had
surgery and John had a problem with his heart and ended up in the ER. They fixed it but John and his son were not
much fun on Thanksgiving. 
President
Jay told us a Christmas Story. Back in
the day when microwaves first came into being his first wife had invited the
entire family to Christmas dinner. His
sister thought it would be a great idea to microwave the turkey instead of baking
it. The turkey looked beautiful. Jay said it was nice and browned, just
gorgeous. Everybody was sitting around
the table anticipating their first bite of turkey. Unfortunately when his Dad began to carve the
turkey the turkey exploded and disintegrated into a million, inedible
pieces. The moral. Good thing there’s canned ham at 24 hour, 365
day a week convenience stores. 
Gary
Todoroff noted that St. Bernard’s just won the State Championship in their
division. A round of applause was given
to St. Bernard’s. 
SPENGLER-HOWARD RAFFLE:
Rotary Hat: Jim Howard $10: Greg
Pierson. Happy Camper Mug- Keith Crossley. 
Patrick Cleary drew a card for a pot of $450 and won the consolation
prize of a Rotary paperweight. 
GUEST SPEAKER: Humboldt Bay Coast Guard
Commander, Arthur Snyder was our guest speaker.
Snyder has been in the Coast Guard for 36.5 years. He enlisted in 1979 (most of us thought he
was probably 10 when he enlisted). For
the first 10 years he fixed electronics on aircraft. His goal in joining the Coast Guard was to
enjoy the benefits and gain experience.
But he liked it so much he decided to enlist in officer training. He’s been an officer for 26 years and loves
it. He’s now the sector commander for
Humboldt Bay.
He
showed us a slide show that talked about the history of the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard was formed in 1790 shortly
after America won its independence from Great Britain. Alexander Hamilton
worked with Congress on ways to fuel the economy as America tried to recover
from the war. They decided to tax ships
(especially British ships) that were coming to America with goods. The founding organization of the Coast Guard
was formed. It was called, The Revenue
Marine Service which eventually became the United States Coast Guard. Over the years other organizations have been
folded in under the umbrella of the Coast Guard including the Steamboat
Inspection Service in 1838, The Bureau of Navigation in 1789 and in 2000 the
Department of Homeland Security. They
are charged with drug interdiction; search & rescue; marine safety; defense
readiness; migrant interdiction; ports, waters & coastal security; living
marine resources, marine environmental protection, ice operations, other law
enforcement. Locally they have two
patrol boats – one in Crescent City and one in Eureka, 2 motor lifeboats- one
in Fort Bragg and one here, 3 helicopters with a fourth one coming in April.
MEETING ADJOURNED: 1:30pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Alicia
Cox
