Wagner Rotary members gathered on Wednesday, July 26th on the hottest day of the year so far. Thankful for air conditioning. President Brunsing welcomed everyone, and Pastor/Bill Heermann offered up a prayer of thanks for having a cool place to gather, the food and the hands that prepared it to make it possible for Wagner Rotarians to go about the Wagner Community doing good works.

Song Leader Gerrit Juffer was back! He was welcomed as we struggled without his Bluetooth or phone accompaniment. We sang two rousing verses of ROTARY! We also sang Happy Birthday to Bill Frei for his July birthday. Rotarian Juffer has designated the first Wednesday of each month as the time to sing to those having a birthday.

Rotarian Patty Frei is the assistant for our Membership Minute portion of the meeting. She explained what being a Paul Harris Society Member involves: The Paul Harris Society recognizes Rotary members and friends of The Rotary Foundation who elect to contribute $1,000 or more each year to the Annual Fund, PolioPlus Fund or approved global grants. The purpose of the Paul Harris Society is to honor and thank individuals for their generous, ongoing support of the Rotary Foundation.

Recognition consists of a chevron style pin and a certificate provided by your District Paul Harris Society Coordinator. A show of the hands of club members revealed that about all members are Paul Harris fellows. As the years and contributions accumulate, pins are given with various colored stones recognizing the contributions. The selling of our football books in the fall and donations to Polio Plus all add up to each contributor’s goal of a thousand dollars.

Sergeant at Arms Jamie Soukup fined Rotarian Ken Cotton $2 even though he was absent for winning last weeks Queen of Hearts drawing of $180.00; Jeff Doom was fined $2 for asking a not-very-nice question; $5 was awarded to Gerrit Juffer missing a lot of fines during his recent absence; $2 to Becky Brunsing for her grey hair; and $2 to Bryan Slaba for being a non-official golf pro last week at a tournament; and $2 to Jerry Henke for advising the Sergeant about his Charles Mix Electric dividend Secretary-Treasurer Craig Krsnak announced that the new amount in the Queen of Hearts drawing was $ 16. President Brunsing held the winning ticket number but only drew a two of Diamonds. The attendance race is in its initial stages and both Gerrit and Bill’s teams are tied by four misses each.

Members were reminded of their obligation to help serve root beer floats at the Chamber appreciation supper next Wednesday, August 3 at the City Park. After supper is over Rotarians are to proceed to Wagner Lake to do restoration work on the Rotary Shelter.

Brunsing and Bechen reminded all members of the upcoming showing of Sound of Freedom at the Wagner Theater. The production features the growing problem of child trafficking in the United States. The film will be shown at the Wagner Theatre on Friday and Saturday of this week at 7:00 pm, and the showing on Sunday afternoon at 3:00 pm. The film will also be shown at the Lorrain Theatre in Armour, SD at 7:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and at 3 p.m. on Sunday.

Rachel Woods introduced Michelle (Mickey) Hollman as her program. Hollman is the Charles Mix and Douglas County Pod Coordinator. This is a Statewide Emergency Registry of volunteers in South Dakota who are designated for certain communities and areas within their communities in case of a health emergency.

She has fourteen volunteers appointed so far and needs at least four more. She urged members to volunteer and register. In the event of an outbreak of a contagious disease or a bio-terror attack, the Wagner POD Planning Committee has an emergency plan for protecting you. Depending on the situation, there may need to be immunization or antibiotics given to a large number of people. The Planning Committee can treat a large number of people within a two-to-three-day period. This requires a lot of volunteers to operate these clinics.

Hollmann passed out materials describing what a volunteer will be expected to do and a pamphlet from the State of South Dakota titled SERV SD. Please visit the website which is https://volunteers. sd.gov/ or contact Hollman if you are interested in becoming a volunteer or would like more detailed information. Here is her information: Wagner POD Coordinator, Phone 605-482-1839, email: Dantebee@hotmail.com The meeting was adjourned in our usual fashion: