President Pro Tempore Bryan Slaba called the Wagner Rotary Club to order on Wednesday, November 6th in the absence of President Bill Frei. Pastor Laurie Kidd asked Rotarians to be thankful that Rotarian Joe Stedronsky was once again in attendance and to remember the recent tragedy in our Wagner Community. She prayed for the victims of last week’s explosion and asked for prayers for all the first responders.

Wagner Community School Seniors in attendance were: Lance Soukup, parents Roger and Margo Soukup; Lukas Otte, parents John and Melody Otte, Hollee Smejkal, parents Tara Honomichl; and Isabella Cournoyer, parents Justin Cournoyer.

Rotarian Laurie Kidd played our Rotary Song for the day first, “Viva La Rotary!” and this followed by “Let There Be Peace on Earth”.

Rotarian Ken Cotton gave a long Membership Minute entitled Nurses for Brain Health: Being Outliers as Role Models. Nurses are the work force of the world; they are also role models of healthy living that most folks trust to give them wise counsel.

A recent series of controlled trials discovered that the performance of elders “reflects increased knowledge, not cognitive decline”. They emphasized that changes in cognitive performance around retirement age reflect greater memory search demands as experience grows.

By believing that our differences in processing information and memory with aging are associated with the richness of our life experiences, we hold onto the positive emotions that can enhance our immune response as well as our motivation to keep on keeping on.

Scientists suggest that improved performance in centenarians is a way to “add life to life”. Aerobic exercise can help you build a better brain because it may reduce toxins in your brain—even those associated with Alzheimer’s disease; reduce inflammation which was been associated with neurodegeneration; reverse some of the effects of aging; improve your immune response; increase your healthy cholesterol and lower your LDL, bad cholesterol. It can protect against brain damage; elevate your mood (better than medications) and improve your sleep, memory, concentration, speed and executive functions.

Football book winners were Joan Payer sold by Ken Cotton and Aaron Hanson sold by Scott McAdaragh.

Visiting guest Jaycie Culbert won a chance at winning the Queen of Hearts but drew only a Spade.

Treasurer/Secretary Patty Frei announced that Bill Heermann’s attendance team had two misses today with a total of 3; and Laurie Kidd’s team had 4 misses with a total of 10. $22.00 was collected for the Queen of Hearts Drawing bringing the total to $99.00.

Bryan read a thank you note from our District Governor Ina Winter thanking the Wagner Rotary Club for hosting the afternoon coffee with our visiting Australian Group Study Exchange Team last Wednesday afternoon. More details on the meeting will be forthcoming.

Laura Wright introduced her program which was Connie Kaufman, Ericka Kotab, and Jaycie Culbert who represented the SOC group(Strengthening OurCommunity). Ericka spoke first about the beginnings of the formation of the group. SOC is the Project AWARE Advisory Committee that is made up of a cross-section of community members whose goal is to build relationships and create capacity to become a self-healing community. It includes 14 area community organizations.

The Wagner Community which encompasses a large area had a high percentage of suicides, attempted suicides and challenging difficulties for all people.

Project AWARE Goals: 1. To increase and improve access to mental health services for school-aged youth.

2. To equip education and other professionals with the tools necessary to recognize and respond to behavioral health issues among students with multi0-tiered systems of support.

3. To conduct outreach and encouragement with school-aged youth and their families to promote positive mental health and increase awareness of mental health issues.

4. To help school-aged youth develop skills that promote resilience, destigmatize mental health and increase self and peer awareness of mental health issues.

The SOC participants have planned and executed several programs of outreach and education during the last year. The group was just formed in 2018. They teach resilience skills, do screening for social, academic, emotional behavioral risks, reduce stigma, through social emotional learning programs, respond to mental health or addiction challenges or crises, educate school staff and other professionals about mental health, build school/community relationships that are supportive and collaborative.

They are ready and willing to help anyone who reaches out for help. Governor Noem has established a Suicide hotline and they can provide you or someone you are concerned about for immediate intervention and support.

President Pro Tempore Bryan Slaba who is also the CEO at WCH voiced his total support of the group. He cited some statistics that show Wagner Community Hospital receives a very high number of suicides and attempted suicides.

The club found the program to be very enlightening and urge everyone to learn more about this important community program. You might want to consider having this program for your organizational group or for any kind of group membership.

The club adjourned in its usual fashion.