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Wagner Rotary met for its weekly meeting Wednesday, September 21 starting with a welcome from President Rachel Woods. Rotarian Bill Heermann offered a prayer for the food and fellowship.

The club was again honored to have four more Seniors from Wagner Community School visiting. Corbin Carda, son of Gina and Mike Carda was the first Senior to introduce himself. He is deciding between USD for Physical Therapy and SDSU for engineering. Kiara Ross is the daughter of Jessica and Donald Necklace, and she plans to attend Lake Area Technical School to study Cosmetology. Mariah Zephier is the daughter of Jerrod Zephier and Hillary Ramos and is planning to attend a college yet determined to study Business and Accounting. Teddy Slaba is the son of Matt and Mieke Slaba and would like to become a teacher but has not decided on a specific college.

Rotarian Song leader Jeff Doom was back and chose Let Me Call You Sweetheart and our old standby “Smile” for songs. We are struggling without some music to guide us in pitch and tone.

Rotarian Ken Cotton used the Membership Minute to acquaint the Seniors with some of Rotary’s guidelines. Rotary is an organization of business and professional persons united worldwide who provide humanitarian service, encourage high ethical standards in all vocations and help build goodwill and peace in the world.

The first official Rotary flag was flown in Kansas City, Missouri, in January 1915. In 1922 a small Rotary flag was carried over the South Pole by Admiral Richard Byrd a member of the Winchester, Virginia, Rotary Club. Four years later, the admiral carried a Rotary flag in his expedition to the North Pole.

Rotary Fines: Two important Rotary fines were not included in last weeks report: A bidding war broke out between two Rotarians over who was the happiest! Jerry Henke pledged $50 of his winnings from the Queen of Hearts Drawing; and Ken Cotton pledged $50 for being the 2022 Parade Marshall. Jerry immediately raised his bid to $55 which drew another raise of $60 from Jerry. At this point they both called it a draw.

Sergeant at Arms Jordan Weber promptly fined Linda Soukup $4 for her phone ringing and added another $2 for it happening during the prayer! Guilty!

$3 fine to Jeff Doom for using his phone, $4 to welcome Jeff Doom back to Rotary after a few absences; $4 to Jerry Weber for financials; $3 to Jerry Henke for locking someone in the Post Office; $3 to Bill Frei for giving Henke dessert first; $1 to Amanda Bechen who prepared for eating her BBQ lunch cautiously; $1 each to Jeff, Scott, Bill Frei and Bill Heerman at Patty Frei’s table.

Jeff Doom gave a Happy Fine of $5 for being back at Rotary.

The Queen of Hearts drawing has just started over, so no one was too excited when Kathe Henke drew just a four of Hearts. The amount collected so far is only worth $31.00 President Woods gave the attendance team report and Jordan Weber’s team was missing three today and Jamie Soukup’s team was missing two. Jordan’s team stands at 21 misses and Jamie’s team has sixteen misses.

Football winners for the second week were Book #56 Tom Soukup sold by Linda Soukup and #156 to Robert Frei sold by Bill Frei.

The program chairperson for the day was Linda Soukup who spoke about the 125th Homestead Celebration of the Joseph and Mary Soukup family held last year. Family members met for a year prior to the celebration and planned for the Labor Day Weekend. Joseph and Mary Soukup were married in 1896 and were the parents of ten children. One of the children, Steven Soukup died when he was only twelve; and a daughter Mary died of a brain tumor when she was thirty-six. The other children were George, Frank, Joe, Charlie, Tom, Mike, and daughters Theresa and Rose. Joseph and Mary were able to buy 160-acre farms for the six boys through the years and all were in a radius of three to five miles. The only child who lived further away was daughter Theresa Slaba who married Oscar and lived on a farm southeast of Geddes.

Soukup asked family members for pictures, new and old. She received over a thousand pictures which she put in four scrapbooks and included the first Soukup ancestor who came to America in 1870, Frantisek and Therezie Soukup with their daughter Kate who was only one year old at the time They settled in Tabor and as the children grew up they gravitated west to the Wagner area which had more land available for settlement.

A count established for the Soukup Family showed 548 living and deceased members of the Joseph and Mary Soukup Family. Seven babies have been born since last September, the latest one being a great grandchild of Linda Soukup, program chairperson. Beau Michael, son of Dylan and Keely Brunsing will be the sixth generation to live on the Soukup Homestead.

Soukup has done the family research through other family members and is a member of Ancestry. com ever since computers came into being. She relies on the information available online to trace back into time. Ancestry has researchers that do all the work and then it becomes available to your account. Soukup stated that “it is worth every penny.” Birth, death, burial, marriage records, all are available. She has also researched family lines, both maternal and paternal on her parents’ family lines.

Rotarian Soukup also brought Karol Soukup Kniffen into her program. Soukup had been contacted by Roger Wiltz who was a local columnist for more information on the Soukup families. Wiltz had interviewed Bob Soukup who referred him to Soukup. We don’t know if Roger ever finished the article. He had planned to submit it to the South Dakota Magazine.

Karol has always been involved in the Soukup records and reunions as well as all of the Bob and Marie Soukup family. She has been dubbed “The Soukup Librarian” and has spent time seeing that the Soukup relatives get a chance to look at the four scrapbooks that have been compiled.

If anyone would like to start researching their family history, Linda Soukup is available to help you get started on Ancestry.com.

The meeting ended with the recitation of our 4-Way Test: Is it the truth? Is it FAIR to all concerned? Will it build GOODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIPWS? Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?