Wagner Rotary Club was convened on Wednesday April 24th by President Jerry Weber with a carefully rung bell. President Weber will long be remembered for his bell ringing ability. Rotarian Laurie Kidd gave a blessing for the beautiful weather, sunshine, and a glorious Easter Sunday. She asked that we all remember the flooding victims, the farmers and the excessive moisture they are dealing with. Laurie then led the club in singing “In the Good Old Summer Time”.

Bill Herrmann was lucky enough to have his ticket pulled from the can and the suspense grew as he looked at the deck of cards. He came close, pulling an 8 of Hearts. $18.00 was collected today bringing the total to $563.00 for the Queen of Hearts.

Rotarian Patty Frei announced that she had one makeup from Francis Doom for the day and there was 1 miss on the Henke Team and 1 miss on the Frei team bringing the totals to 10 misses for Henke’s and 7 for Frei’s. She had received a letter from the City of Wagner concerning recent curb and gutter improvements and the Rotary’s share will be $137.28. The shares with the City are 50-50. Rotarian Frei reminded all members that next weeks meeting will be held at the Wagner Movie Theatre instead of the Rotary Building. It is our annual recognition of the top students in each high school class.

President Jerry announced that we would be inducing a new member not next week, but the week after on May 8th.

Rotarian Kathe Henke had the program for the day, and she introduced Mr. Mike Dangel from Charles Mix Electric of Lake Andes, SD. Mr. Dangel has been with CME for 21 years. The last 3 years he has been a member of the Services Department. His job is to visit with members, supervise the internet connections in Southern Charles Mix County, promote and service water heaters, produce a newsletter for members and contribute to the rural electric magazine.

He began by voicing a concern about the fact that so many people are beginning to disconnect from land lines and rely solely on their cell phones. The recent April blizzard two weeks ago brought this matter to his attention. CME had some power interruptions in southern Charles Mix, and they were corrected as soon as possible. He asked everyone to consider “what are you going to do if you have a power outage and no longer have a landline and your cell phones have gone dead”? You might be able to recharge from a vehicle but sometimes that is not possible. They see a continual decrease in landline phones being disconnected every month. Generators were discussed at length. He stated that backup power with generators is normally considered to be about 10 KW needed for household use; 15 KW for farm usage, and 25 KW for geothermal heating usage. Mr. Dangel encouraged everyone to discuss as a family what they need to do for an alternative for energy and make a plan.

When asked how much energy is produced from renewable sources Dangel replied about 38% of their power source was from renewable sources such as dams and water transmissions. The next question was about our power grid and what would happen if that was knocked out. Mike replied cyber security is not quite as critical in our location in the US as it is in the more densely populated areas and he doesn’t believe that will be a huge concern.

Poles vs. underground wiring: Dangel replied that CME is headed towards more underground wiring a little more each year. Underground wiring has improved over the years. At one point they did have some that caused quite a bit of maintenance and that was discontinued. With the improvements they expect it to be utilized a lot more in the future. Normal depth for burial underground is about 4 feet deep for high voltage. All boring or digging for underground depends on the type of boring equipment being used.

Wind generation for a single farm? Dangel replied that a single farm is usually not cost efficient for wind towers as they require so much maintenance; whereas solar energy has almost paid for itself. Electric car charging stations is coming in the future.

Dangel was thanked for his interesting information.