President Bill Frei took his usual position at the head table to start the Rotary Meeting this past Wednesday, December 11th. He thanked Rotarian Bryan Slaba for filling in for him at the last week’s meeting due to the death of his father-in-law.

Pastor Bill took his turn at offering a prayer for the beautiful day and our food and fellowship.

There were several guests in attendance. Four of them were Seniors from WCS and they introduced themselves by giving their name, theirparents names, courses of study that they are taking this semester, and telling the club of their possible future plans. Those in attendance were Rose Eitemiller, parents Chet and Angela Eitemiller; Payton Mora, Father Adam Mora; Anastazia Zephier, Mother Lois Weddell; Morgan Nedved, Father Lee Nedved.

Ken Cotton gave a Membership Minute which this reporter failed to pick up when the meeting was over. My apologies Ken and readers!

Rotarian Laurie Kidd asked President Bill what his favorite Christmas Carol was, so we sang “Deck the Hall with Boughs of Holly”. Our Rotary song was “Roll Rotary”.

The Assistant Sergeant struggled with the fining procedure and forgot to collect and give the head table tickets for the drawing. After giving them a ticket, Patty Frei the Secretary/Treasurer drew a 5 of Hearts.

Secretary Patty announced that we had collected $17.00 for the day bringing the total of the Queen of Hearts drawing up to $188.00.

The attendance race is almost a done deal. Pastor Bill’s team had 2 absences today with a total of 5 for the quarter. Pastor Laurie’s team had 5 misses for the day bringing their total up to 23 absences for the second quarter of attendance.

Patty handed out checks from the winning football books. Last weeks’ winners were Pam Nordquist sold by Gerrit Juffer and Laura Wright sold by herself. This week’swinnerswereJamesBechen sold by his wife Amanda, and Rosie Sumpter sold by Gerrit Juffer and is the name of the family dog! I wonder if that is legal!

President Bill announced that the program for next week will be the viewing of the 2019 Predictions which the club does every year. This will be followed by our annual business meeting for the year. This will be our last meeting for the year 2019. The following two Wednesdays fall on Christmas Day and New Years Day.

Pastor Bill Heermann introduced his program which was led by Dana Sanderson. Dana spoke about the annual Voice of Democracy essay contest which is sponsored every year by the VFW. Dana described the early years of trying to get kids to participate by writing and entering their essays in the contest.

He said he didn’t fully understand how the program worked until one year his daughter wrote an essay and won at the local level and then on to the State level and the last step is a trip to Washington DC.

Every year there is a new topic. This year was What Makes America Great. Essays should be between 3 and 5 minutes long and judged on quality of content, originality of material, and their delivery. Judges select the winners and as students progress up to the nationals, they deliver their essays over and over improving on them as time goes by.

This year Wagner had five students winning: Callie Frei, daughter of Bill and Patty Frei; Kallen Kafka, son of Jay and Kim Kafka; Alex Zephier, daughter of Christel and Jody Zephier; and Mackenzie Roberts, daughter of Mark and Linda Roberts; and Rose Eitemiller, daughter of Chet and Angela Eitemiller.

There is one district winner for every 15 entries, so Wagner did very well with 5 winners advancing.

Alex Zephier and Mackenzie Roberts read their essays and they were riveting. It was easy to see how they won.

Dana concluded by saying that these essays were talked about quite a bit at the judging level. The judges commented on the fact that almost every essay by Wagner students mentioned the word “diversity”. This is an indication that our Wagner Community students are very aware of the diversity in our school

system and it is an advantage to our students to experience things like this in high school. Many students go on to colleges without ever experiencing other cultures and they have a more difficult time adjusting to college life on their own as a result.

The meeting adjourned with the singing of America.

Assistant Sergeant at Arms Scott McAdaragh filled in for the Sergeant Becky Brunsing.

• Bryan Slaba was promptly fined $1 for back talking to the Sergeant at last weeks meeting.

• $1 to Ken Cotton for being late to the meeting and another dollar for handing his dirty plate to a Senior.

• $1 each to Laura Wright, Gerrit Juffer and Amanda Bechen for winning books that they sold to themselves.

• $1 extra fine to Gerrit Juffer for selling one of his football books to the family dog.

• Scott McAdaragh paid a $5 Happy Fine for his son retiring from the military. He has 20 years in service with a tour in Iraq, National Guard and several years in the regular Army.