President Jordan Weber gave a good whack to the Rotary Bell to bring everyone to order on Wednesday, December 4th. Weber followed the ring with a prayer for a blessing upon our food and our actions as we go about our Wagner Community.

There was a table full of guests to introduce. Gerrit Juffer brought with him Whitney Podzimek, his program for the day. Also present were Karlyn Kapfenstein, who was the Social Service Director at our former Wagner GSC and Cammy Ellwanger the Director of Nursing at the Corsica Nursing Home. Michelle Juffer was also present and well known in the Wagner Community as the long-time administrator at the WGSC, Rotarian Margaret Doom introduced Saydae Bures who works at the Bures CPA firm for her father, Frank Bures. Rotarian Amanda Bechen introduced her associate Jean Kirwan Crowe.

Rotarian Patty Frei spoke about the Rotary Mottos “Service Above Self “and “One Profits Most Who Serves Best.” There were some interesting historical facts associated with the mottos. In 1911 at the second Rotary convention the Profits Most Who Servest Best was adopted. During this convention, another motto gained favor from a Seattle Rotarian that was shorter: Service, Not Self. At the 1950 Rotary Convention the two slogans were formally approved as the official mottoes of Rotary: He Profits Most Who Serves Best and Service Above Self. In 1989 the Service motto was established as the principal because it best conveys the philosophy of unselfish volunteer service. This was also modified in 2004 to its current wording of One Profits Most Who Serves Best in 2010.

Rotarian Juffer led the club members in two verses of “Clementine.” Sergeant at Arms Jerry Weber was up next with the following fines: $2 to Gerrit Juffer for his choice of song; $1 to just about everyone for having their Christmas lights up already; $5 to Amanda Bechen for not having any lights up yet; $10 to Bill Frei for never taking his lights down from year to year. Happy Fines came from Jerry Henke for 20 years of survival from having a quadruple bypass twenty years ago on December 8th; $13.00 came from Bryan Slaba for his 13th grandchild; $5 came from Craig Krsnak for his Christmas mishap with a stepladder; $5 came from Jerry Weber for the successful open-heart surgery of his brother Craig.

The “Lucky Table” struck again, Jerry Henke had the winning ticket number and pulled an Ace of Diamonds from the deck of cards. Secretary Krsnak informed Jerry that he lost $103.00. The unwelcome news came again from the attendance report which showed five misses for the Frei Team and zero misses from the Margaret Doom Team. Football books winners from Book 45 were JD and Rita Cotton sold by Ken Cotton and Bryan Slaba sold by himself.

Gerrit Juffer introduced his program Whitney Podzimek for Wagner Good Samaritan Administrator. Podzimek spoke about the devastating fire a little over two years ago that destroyed our Wagner Good Samaritan Center on November 8, 2022. She spoke briefly about the staffing then and how hard they all worked to rescue all the residents during the fire. She also thanked all the community volunteers who helped to evacuate the facility and went on to work in other nursing homes in the area. At the time of the fire the WGSC Home had been upgraded to a four-star facility, which she credited happened because of the dedication of the nursing staff.

Some of the nursing staff from Wagner went on to the other nursing homes in the area and about 32 employees remained out of a total of 65. Podzimek has worked mainly at the Corsica nursing home with several of the former Wagner employees. The Corsica home has just been upgraded from a one-star facility to a three-star facility which she credits to her nursing staff. It did take time for the two nursing staffs to blend and continue to work together for the good of the residents. Corsica has received a citation from the National Board of Nursing Homes.

Whitney then proceeded to give what updates she could on the progress being made on the WGSC home construction. There has been a lot of demolition done; the rooms have all been gutted. The floors have all been opened to accommodate new plumbing, the attics have been gutted, and all the old insulation has been removed. The nurse’s station is being relocated. The dining room has not been restored yet. “There will be 50 beds with 36 being private rooms and 14 rooms having the option of being private or semiprivate.” OSHA requirements are being met with all the bathrooms being enlarged to accommodate wheelchairs and walkers. They will be accepting Medicare or Medicaid patients. Skilled nursing and long-term care nursing are options that will be determined in the future. There is a telephone number that can be used to be put on a waiting list. Whitney did not give the number, but they are working on a 384 Wagner prefix that will be available soon for Wagner residents to use for signing up for the new home. There are presently about 15 names on the sign-up list.

“Staffing will be the biggest issue when we reopen” stated Whitney. There is no way to determine if all the former employees will return. Many have expressed their desire to work at Wagner again. Staffing anywhere for any kind of work is a huge problem in our society today. The other issue that small rural nursing homes face is over regulation. The Biden Administration recently rolled out new regulations for nursing homes and it affects small rural nursing homes the most. There is a push to have these regulations rewritten for staffing and there is a lawsuit currently being pursued on a national level.

The Rotary Club gave a round of applause for the informational program and Rotarian Margaret Doom spoke for all in asking Podzimek to let the Rotary Club know if they could do anything to help in the future.

We adjourned in our usual fashion by reciting The Four-Way Test of the things we think, say, or do.