There was a full house Wednesday Noon, March 27th for the weekly Wagner Rotary Club members. Guests introduced were Golby Uhiler from parts unknown by Ken Cotton, and Whitney Podzimek, presently the Administrator of Wagner Good Samaritan Home by Gerrit Juffer.

It was a happy and sad day for Rotarians. Rotarian Kelsey Doom will be moving to Brookings, South Dakota to assume a new position for the Brookings Chamber of Commerce. In her honor we sang For She’s a Jolly Good Rotarian. The Wagner Club is sad to see her go and her membership and leadership was greatly appreciated. Wagner’s loss is Brooking’s gain. Farewell Kelsey and come back and visit your roots often! You will always be welcome at our club!

Rotarian Ken Cotton gave a Membership Minute on “Unusual Make-up Meetings”. He began by asking club members the question: Which Rotarians travel the farthest for a make-up meeting? You are right if you guessed the 34 members of the Rotary Club of Papeete, Tahiti, which is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and is the club that is most remote from any other. The southernmost Rotary meeting is that of the Rotary Club of Badsre Marambio-AntArtida in Antarctica. To visit the northernmost club, you must travel to the Rotary Club of Svalbard on the Svalbard island group far north of the Norwegian mainland.

It is said that there is a Rotary meeting being held someplace in the world every hour of every day. If you attended one meeting per day, it would take more than 80 years to visit more than 31,000 Rotary clubs in the world, and by that time, no doubt, there would be thousands more new clubs to attend.

Kelsey also received a chance at the Queen of Hearts Drawing courtesy of her Grandpa Francis but only drew the 2 of Diamonds. Secretary Patty Frei announced that we had collected $24 at the meeting bringing the total pot for the Queens drawing to $490.00. Patty asked all members to bring their sold raffle tickets to next Wednesdays meeting. Jerry Henke’s attendance team had two misses for a total of 32 and Bill Frei’s team had zero misses for a total of 19 misses. This was the last Wednesday of the third quarter and with only two weeks to make up 19 misses the Frei Team was declared the winner of the third quarter attendance race. The Henke Team will be buying the steaks very soon.

Other business the club discussed was determining the date of the annual cleanup for the Wagner Community. It is on Friday May 3rd. Jeff Doom assumed the position of Chairman for the Cleanup at the last Chamber meeting and he said he would be asking for volunteers in the coming weeks.

Rotarian Gerrit Juffer introduced Lee Qualm of Platte, SD, who represents us in the South Dakota legislature. Lee is also Speaker of the House and serving in that capacity has brought him in touch with our concerns in greater depth. He spoke for awhile on his overall impression of the last session. He said he really enjoyed working with the new administration. Governor Kristi Noem was inaugurated early in January but is working to fill all positions in her cabinet. He was pleased with the fact that there was easy access to information and to getting in touch with the right people to work with. He expects her cabinet to be even more efficient next year. He declared the recent weeks of work a “good session”. They worked very late on the last day of the session which was Wednesday, March 6th and went to 3:00 a.m. in order to get things finished. Legislators were aware of the weather forecast and everyone left Pierre immediately to get home. Not many South Dakotans will forget the following three days of the weather that brought rain, sleet, snow and wind.

They allowed 10% funding for nursing homes in South Dakota which was an increased from the 2 or 3 percent usually allowed. Lee said they know the 10% is not enough, but it was something that needs to be workedonharder in the future. There is $5 million dollars available in Innovation Grants and he is hoping that nursing homes and the State will begin to come up with new ideas that will enable them to tap into some of those grants. Education received a 2 ½ % increase, state employees were given a 2 and 1/2 % increase; plus, they increased the per diem for state employees. Motels, hotels, etc. were not even giving a discount for the small amount of per diem that had been used in the past.

There is a half million dollars allocated in the Emergency Fund which after our flooding and snow event of two weeks ago will be used up very quickly. Qualm stated that our roads and bridges weren’t in the best of shape before the storm and now are even in worse shape. South Dakota will be recovering for a very long time.

The legislature and Governor Noem also produced an agreement with the Keystone Pipeline company and Keystone will be held accountable for all expenses in building through the state of SD. A unique feature of this bill is that anyone who is found instigating a riot regarding the pipeline or any other matter that causes damage to the State will be in violation of SD law and will be charged for all damages. Lee informed the club of individuals who had recently been present in Winner SD and were offering up to $500 to anyone who would protest and riot against the pipeline.

The online sales tax was discussed. Qualm said that .05 of this tax would be going for teachers pay. A company must do more than One Hundred Thousand Dollars before SD can collect the sales tax. There are some technical difficulties yet with collection but those should be worked out soon.

During a question and answer period, Speaker Qualm was asked about his impression of the new Governor. He said she is very accessible,shemademanyappearances in the legislative chambers and was very willing to meet with anyone. The possibility of farmers growing hemp in SD was also discussed. It was not dealt with this year as the Governor felt it was too soon. There is a difference between hemp and marijuana which people sometimes confuse. Lee described the beginning of hemp and how it was a good crop many years ago but faded out once plastic became a commodity. It is also a very profitable crop and has many future possibilities for our state.

South Dakota has been given a disaster declaration. That is a blanket declaration and each county does not have to ask for a declaration.

The next meeting on April 3rd will be a session on Rotary Club Membership by Francis Doom. ALL new members for the past five years are asked to be present for this meeting. We are doing this in lieu of having evening meetings for the orientation. The Club adjourned with the singing of America.

Sgt. at Arms Craig Krsnak had a page full of fines:

• $1 to Francis Doom for a case of mistaken identity with “cat food” versus tuna.

• $1 to Jerry Henke for having a hearing problem with the cooks.

• $1 to Kathe Henke for using the buns for decoration.

• $2 to Dana Woods for having a hard time taking a spot at the “teachers table”.

• $1 to Linda Soukup for giving her daughter Becky Brunsing a hard time about the program schedule.

• $1 to Becky for talking about Rachel Woods new hairdo.

• $5 to Bill Frei for possibly looking for an additional job.

• $2 to Jeff Doom for yelling at Linda Soukup.

• $1 to every Jackrabbit Fan for the SDSU ladies recent basketball win.

• $1 to Kelsey Doom for being the center of attention at the meeting