Rotarian Jamie Soukup presided over the July 24th meeting in the absence of President Jordan Weber. He practiced before the meeting on ringing the bell, but in the end his ringing was pretty weak. More practice is needed Jamie.

Rotarian Gerrit Juffer brought one guest to the meeting. Brian J. Anstotter and iFC representative from Des Moines, Iowa who does financing for Juffer Inc. Other guests introduced were Meike and Matt Slaba, parents of Presley Slaba who was the program for the day. Rotarian Amanda Bechen introduced her guests.

Song leader Gerrit Juffer fell back on an old favorite, ROTARY. We sang two verses very well!

The Membership Minute given by Rotarian Patty Frei was devoted to information about our annual District Conference to be held at the Holiday Inn, Rapid City Downtown from October 3rd through October 6. The theme is Celebrate, Elevate, and Motivate. Rotarians must pre-register for the event at no charge and non-Rotarians may also attend but will pay a $100 fee. If you register by September 3, 2024, you will have a chance to win a Paul Harris Fellow and a $50 Holiday Inn gift card. There will be more information coming in the weeks ahead as we get closer to our convention dates.

Assistant Sergeant at Arms Jeff Doom came to the podium to levy fines but admitted he did not have many: $1 to Amanda Bechen for being late to the meeting with her guests; $4 to Gerrit Juffer who has been spotted at the river with his sailboat four times; $2 to Jeff himself for having two desserts which actually is par for the course!; $2 to Jamie Soukup for the wimpy ring of the Rotary Bell; $1 to Jamie and Craig for not helping Jeff out; $2 to Craig Krsnak for his member list. Happy fines came from Bill Frei of $2.80 for a fish he recently caught and $5.00 from Linda Soukup who was happy her Soukup Tribe made it back to Wagner after getting caught up in the total breakdown of air flights the previous weekend; $5 from Jamie Soukup who received the wall mount of his Mountain Lion that he shot last year from Larry Wold of Armour, SD It just so happened that Rotarian Doom acting as Sergeant at Arms got the lucky number to try to find the Queen. No one understands just how that happened. He got close though, pulled the Jack of Hearts.

Secretary Treasurer Krsnak informed Jeff that he almost won $199.00 Krsnak also reported on the attendance race. Both the Soukup and Brunsing teams had two absences giving the Brunsing Team a total of four misses and the Soukup Team a total of six misses.

Rotarian Bechen introduced Presley Slaba to the club members, and she used her laptop to present a program on a trip she took recently with other WCS students to the East Coast. The trip was funded by a grant from the State of South Dakota because we are one of the states that are the farthest from an ocean. Her teacher, Mrs. Tucek, applied for the grant and they left on their adventure in a school bus with no AC and slowly made their way to the East coast. There were six students from Wagner, students from Roscoe, SD, and others from Sioux Falls and Pierre. North Dakota had twenty-five students.

Most of their meals came from gas station stops; that combined with the lack of air conditioning made for an interesting trip, but Presley was very enthusiastic about the things she saw and experienced. She felt that this may have inspired her to think about becoming a veterinarian in the future. They observed many kinds of small sea creatures, went lobster fishing, did some beach time, and went on an Islander Cruise net fishing in Massachusetts. They observed at the Research Capital-Marine Biology Laboratory. She also enjoyed the NOAA Aquarium and a tour of the Marine Biology Laboratory.

A lot of scenery and exploring was packed into a nine-day trip to the East Coast and back through Ohio.

The meeting was adjourned with the recitation of The Four Way Test: Is it the TURHG? Is it FAIR to all concerned? Will it build GODWILL and BETTER FRIENDSHIOPS? Will it be BENEFICIAL to all concerned?