President Bryan Slaba called the Wagner Rotary Club to order promptly at Noon on Wednesday, May 4, 2022. Rotarian Becky Brunsing introduced her guest for the day, Angie Eitemiller. Pastor/ Rotarian Bill Heermann offered a prayer of thanksgiving.

Kathe Henke, Assistant Song Leader, chose “The Happy Wanderer” and “Sing Rotarians” for our music. The club managed as well as we could without our piano player!

There wasn’t a Rotary Minute for the day, so Sergeant at Arms Jerry Weber came to the podium with a full page of fines: $2 to Jeff Doom for a high school memory; $2 to Patty Frei for saying that her husband only works one day a week; $2 to Amanda Bechen for not owning up to the fact that her phone was buzzing at last week’s meeting; $2 to Bryan Slaba and Craig Krsnak at the head table for being “grumpy old men”; $2 to Bill Frei and Jordan Weber for needing haircuts; $2 to Jerry Weber for acquiring his program two days ahead of time instead of his usual 2 hours.

Happy Fines were: $5 from Craig Krsnak for his daughter graduating from Nursing School; $5 from Bryan Slaba for his wife attaining retirement age; $5 from Bryan Slaba for getting the meal even though he messed up the schedule; $5 from Rachel Woods for having her son make his First Holy Communion; $5 from Linda Soukup for whoever removed the old bushes from the Shelter at the Wagner Lake

Rotarian Becky Brunsing held the lucky ticket and got close to the Queen of Hearts by drawing the Queen of Diamonds. Her loss was worth $538.00

Secretary/Treasurer Craig Krsnak reported that the attendance teams are holding steady with a total of nine losses for the Brunsing Team and six losses for the Woods Team.

A short business meeting was held regarding the Scholars Recognition Day at the school; the ditch cleanup east of Wagner; and the Community Wide Cleanup that is scheduled for the 6th of May.

Rotarian Jerry Weber introduced his program for the day; Ruth (Krcil) Bergin of Lake Andes, South Dakota. Ruth began working at the FCSA in Lake Andes right out of High School and is in her 39th year of employment at the office. Joe Schulz was the Director for several years but when he moved on to a higher position; Ruth assumed the position of Director. There are six technicians who work under Ruth to assist farmers in every aspect of the agency’s programs.

She stated that right now they are in their slack time, which usually is right before farmers are planting. The COVID pandemic closed their office for a full year in 2020 to March of 2021. They worked from home on computers and laptops and held sessions with farmers by telephone or computer.

Ruth showed a map of drought conditions in South Dakota. Information is gathered on Tuesday of each week and published on Thursdays. Charles Mix County was in the red area designated for Extreme Drought in this past week’s map. An interesting fact she shared was that if the drought area just crosses over a county line, that entire county is eligible for disaster assistance.

She stressed the fact that farmers need to report their acreages and crops every year. Only about 5 percent of farmers in Charles Mix County do not participate in the farm program for assorted reasons.

The meeting adjourned with the recitation of our 4-Way Test.