On Wednesday, March 4th the Wagner Rotary Club met at its usual time for its first meeting of the month. Attendance peaked at sixteen members with some absent due to vacation. South Dakota winters begin to feel quite long by the time March rolls around on the calendar. There were no guests present so Rotary Grace was said, and members ate their meal prepared this week by Valley Pump.

President Jamie Soukup began the business meeting with an awards presentation of Paul Harris Fellowship Pins. Rotarian Patty Frei received her first Paul Harris Pin with one stone in it. Rotarian Gerrit Juffer received his fourth Paul Harris pin with four stones and Rotarian Rachel Woods was awarded her first pin with one stone and a certificate. President Soukup called upon Rotarian Patty to explain the pins to our new members as we have several who have recently jointed the Wagner Club.

A Paul Harris Fellow pin is a prestigious award from The Rotary Foundation recognizing individuals who have contributed $1,000.00 in their name to designated Rotary funds. These pins symbolize a significant, ongoing commitment to humanitarian service and often feature stones, diamonds, sapphires, or rubies to indicate cumulative giving levels beyond the initial donation.

The pin typically features the Rotary emblem and adds stones for every additional $1,000 with specific, higher-level, or vintage pins varying in design that indicate “PLUS” levels. Plus 1-5 are five blue sapphires. Plus 6-8+ is rubies indicating Plus 7,000. To 8,000. The first pin received has one white stone.

The amounts required are cumulative over any number of years. Wagner Rotarians raise money by selling football books, giving a donation to Polio Plus, selling raffle tickets or outright donations. Rotarians can also dedicate their donations to another Rotarian to make them a member of the Paul Harris Foundation. A discussion on ways to ensure that all our new Rotarians that have joined the Wagner Club lately could become Paul Harris Fellows produced several promising ideas.

Sergeant at Arms Gerrit Juffer began his part of the program by fining $2 to Jordan Weber for leaving early and $1 to Jerry Weber for getting caught buying a bottle of wine from Allison Woodsl; $1 went to ournewmemberCarsonKoehn for beginning a new career dog sitting for Juffer; $1 went to Bill Frei for already buying his valentine a present; and all remaining members present were fined $2 each for not buying a valentine present yet. Happy fines came from Linda Soukup of $9 for receiving her ninth great-grandchild and $.25 from Jerry Weber who was happy that Bill Frei did not sit beside him!

Rotarian Becky Brunsing was a happy winner of the Queen of Hearts drawing. She received $58.00 for her prize. There were three misses on the Honke Team and two misses on the Houseman Team resulting in a total of five for the Honke Team and nine for the Houseman Team.

President Jamie asked for suggestions about what to do with our Rotarian Group Texting. There is a limit of twenty people, and we are presently over the limit. There is an alternative to splitting the group into two texts or using an App called Group App for more convenience. The texting is necessary for the President to have to find out prior to our Wednesday meetings how many meals he needs to order from our restaurants. A total is needed by Tuesday morning of each meeting week. The topic was tabled for next week’s meeting.

Patty and Bill Frei were responsible for the weekly program. They had recently attended a meeting in Sioux Falls at which a motivational speaker gave many suggestions for Rotary. The topic was “Rotary is the number one in service organizations. This program was so beneficial to all present, but especially the new members. Service clubs can become “stale” after many years of performance and run the risk of forgetting that new members don’t always know what is expected of the club as a whole or of their new membership. There were many new suggestions given which will be followed up in the coming weeks.

New members in any organization are a wonderful thing to have! We are happy and grateful that Wagner Rotary is alive and well and growing. Have you ever thought about asking a Wagner Rotarian about attending a meeting, or asked them what does Wagner Rotary do in Wagner? We welcome questions and possible new members!