LL Reporter for May 27 meeting

Guest included prospective members Alex Hopkins from Edmonds and Trish Knox from Wville along with Rotary-anns Donna Whitsell and Suzie Truglio and Rotary-annies Maddy Visse and Olivia Visse.

Special guests included WHS FBLA officers and members Lindsay Thomas (President) Denise James (Veep) and sister Jen James, plus Clair Eldred, Nikki Sternagel, Kristine Willberding, and Rotary scholarship (Cascadia) winner Measovannary Pen.

Educational

We learned that FBLA has 110 members at WHS. The members conducted a disheartening game of Jeopardy wherein the Rotarians discovered they did not know as much as they thought they did about business, law, economics, and marketing. However the left side of the room won and that is significant and will be recorded here for permanent retention in our club records.

FBLA conducts more fund raising than the average Rotary club. Among this year’s event are the Brawl and Guitar Hero 3 Tournament (?) where they partnered with Game Crazy (if you don’t know, don’t ask) and Washington Pizza Co; Ruby’s FBLA night when 20% of revenues at Ruby’s goes to the FBLA activities; a Daddy-Daughter dance where the photo sales were booming (Snappy; you can be replaced) and an end of the year Senior slideshow.

The club does substantial community service including a nice turn at Gathering Fabrics; computer classes for seniors (meaning people long out of high school); Hunger Busters at Halloween when members solicit canned goods rather than candy for delivery to Hope Link; and March of Dimes collections in the name of particular teachers; the teacher with the most collections “wins” the honor of wearing a rabbit suit for a day. Service above self, people.

FBLA also has fun at its Ropes event which builds teamwork and muscles.

The main idea behind FBLA is to learn something about business leadership by competing in local, regional, state and national competitions. This year at the winter regionals, WHS had 68 participants, a huge number for interscholastic competition and had 50 win, place, or show awards. Twenty-eight members went on to state and 7 have qualified for the upcoming national competition, substantially more than the 1-2 WHS students who normally qualify for this level of competition.

These are outstanding kids led by instructor Richard Knowlton. You bet, Rotary will help them meet some of their expenses in going to compete and we will look forward to them returning and telling of their success.

In other Rotary news:

Installation dinner at Willows Lodge June 24; Bring your wine to a regular Tuesday meeting now or face possible penalties and retribution.

Susan brought a new project to contribute the cost of Batting for quilts being made for Camp Korey participants. Camp Korey is the Hole in the Wall camp at Carnation initiated by Paul Newman to provide a camp experience for medically challenged kids. All jokes about the Mariners needing the batting more than medically challenged kids were ruled out of order.

Art dutifully reported on the district conference last weekend. Good times and good programs despite some scheduling snafus by the district which made choosing which events to skip really hard. International Conference in LA in June still has room for the fashionably late applying.

Gary Whitsell brought us fruits and veggies from 21 Acres, organic products for your pleasure and enjoyment this summer. If you want some, see Gary.

Gary also brought us more health news, not rotator cuff updates but a prostate cancer diagnosis. Luckily he caught it early and is undergoing aggressive treatment and will come out of it fine. He warns all those with a prostate to get your PSA checked. The trend in your PSA is as important as the reading itself. Know your numbers.

Birthday boys included Evan, Steve and Larry D, all of whom had phenomenal years in business and the community but it sounds like next year will be better yet: Evan has a son in law almost, Larry has two daughters in law, almost; and Steve has grandchild #6, almost.

The Sgt at Arms took the usual prisoners: Duffield for advertising on TV; Evan for boating excessively; Whitsell for saluting with his left hand; and Snappy for selling his new house.

Susan thanked Tana and Dennis for help with the Chamber afterhours; and Rick thanked Steve for hosting the cocktail party at the district conference (it counts as a makeup).

Finally, Dennis busted out on the raffle.

Respectfully submitted, L.L.