July 3rd was a beautiful sunny day for the Wagner Rotary Club to gather at the Rotary Picnic Shelter at Wagner Lake. Attendance was great and everyone enjoyed the picnic meal prepared by Wagner Super Foods.

Rotarian Bill Frei is the new president for the Rotary year 2019-2020 and took control of the meeting by asking Laurie Kidd to give a blessing. Laurie gave thanks for the beautiful outdoors our Creator has blessed us with and asked for guidance for all Rotarians to become good stewards of the land.

Laurie launched the group into singing “Smile” as it is one of our clubs’ best songs. It was followed by singing Happy Birthday for all those with a July birthday, most notably Jerry Weber!

There were several guests in attendance: Ben Ready, SD Southeast Director for Senator John Thune, and Jordan Cardenas, Staff Assistant at Thune’s Sioux Falls office. Gerrit Juffer brought his wife Michele, daughters Jacqueline Sumpter from Washington DC, Sydney Juffer, and Alease Johannsen from his Wagner office. Francis Doom brought his wife Jeanette and Roger Wiltz brought his wife Betsy. Amanda Bechen introduced her assistant, Kristina Ymker, a certified EMT who has recently joined the Wagner Ambulance Association. A warm welcome was extended to all the guests.

President Bill announced that he is working on all the appointments for Team Captains, Sergeant at Arms, programs etc. and hopes to have everything ready for his first official meeting next week.

The Rotary Club was grateful to have Senator John Thune in attendance. Senator Thune was in the area to look at the flooding issues. Congress is out of session now which gives him a chance to travel and make contact with constituents in SD. He was also home in order to attend his 40th High School Reunion during the holiday weekend.

Senator Thune spoke on several subjects most especially the recent devastation in SD due to the excessive rain. He stated that Bon Homme, Charles Mix, Hutchison, and Turner counties seem to be especially affected. He statedthatit was a big win when they were able to change the dates that farmers can harvest crops or cover crops from November 1 to September 1. The problem with many government programs is that “one size does NOT fit all”. November first can mean the ground is already under snowfall in South Dakota. Senator Thune is hoping that the trade agreement with USA-Canada-Mexico will be passed in the House. He stated that we need to get the trade agreement and tariffs settled with China. They have taken advantage of the US for too many years and he is happy that President Trump has taken up this issue.

Senator Thune informed the group that he has introduced a pieceof legislationdealing withthe ever-increasing problem of Robo calls. The people behind these calls do not view paying penalty fines as a problem. They see it as the cost of doing business. Thune’s bill will provide for violators to receive jail sentences or harsher penalties in order to discourage them.

He spoke about the polarization in Washington, DC which concerns everyone. The biggest problem he said is that unknown to the general public business is being conducted as usual and six or seven major pieces of legislation have been passed that were for the good of the country; however the news media does not report the good things that are happening. They concentrate too much on the negative.

Questions were fielded from the audience concerning FEMA response to claims, the life expectancy of Native Americans, the IHS organization; and the biggest topic was the national deficit. Senator Thune stated that everyone is aware of our trillion-dollar deficit, but congressmen only respond to pressure from the public. Things seem to be going well, so getting a balanced budget doesn’t seem to concern the general public. He believes someday Congress and voters will be forced to deal with the problem and probably because of a catastrophe of some sort. It takes political courage and motivation to deal with the problem of the ever-growing deficit.

President Bill declared it was time for adjournment and he promised an inaugural speech at our next meeting.

The meeting was adjourned by singing America.