Meeting of the Rotary Club of Eureka
August 13, 2012
The seventh
meeting of the year was opened in a timely fashion by our diminutive President,
Nancy Dean, with a resounding ring of the bell.
We were led in our salute and pledge to the flag by past President
(2002-2003) Hank Pierson, who is a well-noted Paul Harris Fellow. With catcalls of humor from the audience,
John Gierek responded with a call for solemnity and then proceeded to give a
short, thoughtful and inspiring invocation.
While there were
no student guests announced at the meeting, but the school year quickly
approaching, it was noted that new exchange students Franco from Chile and
Larissa from Germany would be arriving any day now. We should note that both Franco and Larissa
have declared they want to step up and
assist in defending our honor against the SW Rotary Club of Eureka at
the white water rafting event this Saturday.
Let's all give them a cheer -- HURRAH!
We had several
interesting visiting Rotarians. First we had Gary Bosley from Castro Valley in
the South Bay of San Francisco, and our well-known Jim Seiler from
Fortuna.
Most interestingly, we were
introduced to Gary Hayes, hails from far-off and exotic Bangkok, Thailand, by
our own distinguished Matt Messner. As
Director of the Think Small Foundation, Gary Hays and his wife with great heart
and courage provide young children with a drug free, exploitation free
environment, with a good dose of leadership
development training and spiritual support & guidance.
Aside from the
visiting Rotarians and guest speaker, we only had two other guests. Greg Gardiner introduced us all to Steven
Jackson, who is associated with Western
Web.
Eric Bergel introduced us to Leroy Zerlang, with Zerlang-Zerlang and
the Golden Rule Project.
As with most
meetings, there were a number of
birthdays mentioned. Dave Dillon had his name day on the 13th, Rick
Littlefield had his annual renewal day on the 14th, Gary Todoroff is definitely getting older on
the 15th, while Fred Whitmire celebrates his day on the 17th.
Wedding
anniversaries had a number of interesting results. We were all amazed and happy
to applaud Dave Dillon's 62nd year of
bliss with his lovely wife Carol on August 13th. We also learned that Fred Whitmire and his
better half Carolyn celebrate their love on the 15th. Kim Bauriedel, who's bacheloring it this week, will meet up with his bride Sile
in Siberia to belatedly celebrate their wedding anniversary which is on the
16th. Walt Shimasaki's 55th anniversary
with his wife Jean on the 17th was also greatly cheered for it's
longevity. We had a pair of 39 year
anniversaries to note, with Ken Stodder and his wife Kay on the 17th, and Paul
Brisso and his wife Melissa on the 18th.
Rounding out the anniversaries, we had Dick Nash who celebrates his
anniversary with wife Jeanne on the 19th.
While we did not
have any membership anniversaries this week.
Before bringing
up our guest speaker there were a series of announcements that were made. Christian Hill mentioned that he and Greg
Seiler will be stopping at all the tables over the next few month to gather
"Best Practices" we may all collectively remember in the lead-up to
our February 2013 Fundraiser. I for one
was please to hear that we will definitely be making it through the Mayan
Calendar end of times day of Dec. 21, 2012, so I'm looking forward to them visiting
my table and helping them both come up
with a good list of fund raising ideas.
While the deadline for signing up had already passed, President Dean
reported that Mindy Bussman still accept sign-ups up through the end of Monday
the 13th for the BBQ and horse racing at
the county fair on Wednesday, August 15th.
Post time for the horse racing was still expected to be 1:30pm.
President Dean also
reminding us that it was not too late to sign-up for the Trinity River white
water rafting this weekend, Saturday, August 18th. Let's have a good turn out and show SW Rotary
how to get wet!
President Dean
also re-announced that Lost Coast Rotaract is sponsoring a Softball Tournament
on Sept. 1, and we need some players. In
addition she reminded us that the Foundation Dinner North is being held at the
River Lodge in Fortuna on Saturday, October 13th. Finally, President Dean reported that the Ferndale Rotary
is having a fund raiser on Tuesday, August 28th -- this would be an Oysters
& BBQ Steak dinner for $20 per person.
While many
Rotarians might not have known the connection between Rotary and the Boy Scouts
of America, Dean shared with us that on August 21, 1912, Arthur Rose Eldred, of
Troop 1 in Oceanside, New York, became the first Eagle Scout. That means that
this next Tuesday, August 21, 2012 will be the 100th anniversary of that event.
In honor of that, Nancy called on all Eagle Scouts in the room to stand and be
recognized. We had three Eagle Scouts present from our Rotary club: Kim Bauriedel, Aaron Tilch and Paul
Brisso.
Our own Rotarian, Susie Smelser,
the local Scout Executive, then stood and gave us some history on the
connection between Rotary and the Boy Scouts of America, and the parallels
between our own Four-way Test and the Scout Oath, Law & Motto. Moreover,
Rotary Clubs in the USA charter (sponsor) nearly 1400 Scouting units (Cub Scout
Packs, Boy Scout Troops, and Venturing Crews), serving more than 50,000 youth
members. Of note, there are no Scouting
units in Humboldt County that are sponsored by a local Rotary club -- this is
something we need to look into.
As we all know,
one of the activities that leads to a Blue Badge is the Craft Talk. This week
we heard from Stacy Lane. Her family first moved up to Humboldt County in the
1960s, so her local roots go back to before she was born. Throughout her life Stacy has had a passion
for learning. In fact one of her first connections to our Rotary club was
through a college scholarship we awarded her with. Her desire to learn shows up many ways. She's a voracious reader, but she likes the
real thing, shunning the newer electronic readers like Kindle. Her desire to learn led to an AA at College
of the Redwoods, then to a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration from
Sacramento State, and then an MBA in International Business. She even studied
law for a while at McGeorge School of Law in SAcramento. In her career she had
the opportunity to pursue even more training and education as she progressed up
the ladder getting licenses and various certifications in the insurance industry. Stacy was a Regional Sales Manager in
Northern and Central California in the Insurance industry, and eventually
became a manager for the insurance giant, AIG. Stacy describes herself
as being an active volunteer, with a history of "getting involved". She is justifiably proud for being a deputy director involved in the effort to pass Proposition 213. She is currently the Executive Director of
the North Coast Schools Insurance Group, which is a not-for-profit joint powers authority serving the
medical and property/casualty insurance needs of local schools. Finally, on a personal level, Stacy loves to
travel, having been to 28 countries around the world (especially Ireland),
she's current engaged, has no kids but would like to have some, and she loves
Old English Roses and basketball. Stacy
-- we are lucky to have you as one of our own!
Finally came the
time for our speaker. We were introduced
to Robin Meiggs, HSU Head Women's Rowing Coach by Chris Freeman. While we
quickly learned that she was the coach that led the HSU women to their first
ever NCAA Division II National Rowing Championship in 2012, and that she won a
second consecutive NCAA Division II Rowing Coach of the Year Award, it was the
story of her 20 year quest that was the
most inspiring. Educationally she
started out with a Bachelor's Degree in Broadcast Journalism, but after
spending 4 years of rowing as a student at HSU followed by some time in Hawaii
rowing outriggers, she recognized what her passion and interests were. She next
pursed a Masters in Exercise Physiology and then came back to HSU where she
signed on as a Volunteer Coach in 1991, eventually becoming an Assistant Coach
in 1992. Back in those days the rowing
team didn't really have any decent facilities available, so they essentially
set up equipment storage in condemned buildings along the waterfront in
Eureka. Then as the building became
completely unusable and were torn down, they would move on to another
building. By 1999, having pretty much
exhausted all the old building, they actually had to lock-up and store their
equipment at a dirt field.
Throughout
this time she spent 10 years developing her skills as an Assistant Coaching, then
becoming an interim Head Coach in 1995, and by 2003 as the permanent Head Coach
she led the HSU women to their first title.
As the team improved and moved up the regional ladder, they eventually
qualified as NCAA Division II team.
Robin's passion in describing how the teams trained, how she developed
the rowing program at HSU, how races were experienced by her team, supplemented
with hundreds of photos on the screen, kept everyone in the club silent and
mesmerized. The way she described her
team taking on and ultimately beating seven time champ Western Washington
University was a great story that all enjoyed listening to, and whom all
seriously applauded when she completed her tale.
Robin's story
was impressive and inspiring. The
commitment and passion she has displayed in pursuing and developing herself and
the HSU women's rowing team was awesome. The Rotary Club was impressed and
moved by the story of Robin's journey.
Presented in
Rotary Service by Bruce Smith
