Wagner Rotary met on Wednesday, July 31st at its usual headquarters on Main Street. Readers might be interested in knowing that our Rotary club is quite possibly the only club in the United States that owns its own facility. Our building started out as the First State Bank and eventually became an insurance agency owned by Emil Piroutek who passed it on to his son Don Piroutek. Don and his wife Dorothy were active in Rotary. Don as a Rotary member and Dorothy as the club pianist. They graciously gave the building to the Wagner Rotary upon Don’s retirement.

President Bill Frei called the meeting to order wondering just where the month of July went. Members agreed with that. Guests were introduced by Amanda Bechen who brought her son Vincent and her daughter Alana as guests. Francis Doom introduced Fr. Jim Friedrich as the new priest at St. John’s Catholic Church in Wagner. Fr. Jim kindly spoke a few words about himself and thanked Francis and the club for inviting him. Welcome to Wagner Fr. Jim!!

Pastor Bill gave thanks for all the Rotarians present for the day, the food and fellowship and asked all to carry on good works in the community and world.

Rotarian Ken Cotton took the podium for an announcement and a Membership Minute. Ken and his wife Mary had just received a phone call from Rotarian Jeff Doom who was calling from Lapland where he was partaking of supper due to the time difference. He had just met a young lady on the trip from the United States and it turned out that she is working in the States with the Cotton’s son Nick at EROS in Sioux Falls. Sometimes it’s a small world, indeed!

Ken then announced that he had received notification that our President Sushil Gupta who was the President of Rotary International had just resigned for health reasons. The new President is Holge Knaach and he will serve for the 2010-2021 term. Holge is from Germany.

Laurie Kidd asked all to rise and we sang Happy Birthday Friends to two Rotarians and one guest who have August birthdays. The members then sang a new song Roll on Rotarians to the tune of Roll Out the Barrels! Our traditional song was Take Me Out to the Ballgame as we are deep into baseball season and many players were traded to other teams in the last few days.

Jerry Henke is one lucky man. He again had his numbered ticket pulled for a chance at winning the Queen drawing. There were only 13 cards left to choose from. Jerry meditated on it for a moment and then slowly drew---a Joker! Everyone was happy! This means the pot has now advanced to $794.00.

Bill Frei reported that Bill Heermann’s team had only two misses today with a total of 8 misses; and Laurie Kidd’s team had 4 misses for a total of 13.

The August 5th meeting will see Bryan Slabaas programchairman, August 7th is Crazy Days on Main Street Wagner and the Club will be serving Root Beer Floats again for free. A good time for Rotarians who have missed meetings to come and work at the root beer table! August 12th we will be meeting at the school for our annual Teacher’s Reception. August 21st we will be working on our Labor Day Float. The theme is River Recreation. President Bill asked for a few Rotarians to help him load more sacks of aluminum cans into the horse trailer on the West side of the building after our meeting.

There were two comfy chairs sitting in front of the Head Table when members arrived for the meeting. Program Chairman for the day Amanda Bechen came to the front and announced that for her program she was going to “interview” our oldest Wagner Rotary member, Joe Stedronsky. She had some questions ready and after they were seated comfortably, she began by asking Joe about his youth and growing up in Wagner.

Joe replied by saying that he graduated from Wagner High School in 1946—73 years ago. He went on to attend college for four years at South Dakota State and graduated from there in 1950. He came home to work but that was interrupted when hewasdraftedinto the Army Signal Corp in March of 1951. He took his basic training in California and served for two years in the Army; the last seven months of which he spent working at the Pentagon in Washington, DC. He was discharged from the Army in March of 1953.

Joe returned to work at Stedronsky Hardware and worked with his Father Ed until his death in 1961. His brother Vernon joined him at the Hardware Store and Joe retired after 50 years in the business. Joe recalled the busy days on Main Street Wagner. He stated that his father told him “If you have a bad Saturday for business, you will have a bad week”. Wagner’s Main Street used to be packed with cars and people all day on Saturday and Saturday night. He also commented that Wagner has always been a good business town and a progressive town.

Growing up as a youth in the community he was the oldest of four children. Vernon, his brother, and two sisters: Rose Marie and Fran. His parents were good people and encouraged the Stedronsky siblings to get good grades and study hard. Joe was proud of the fact that his three siblings also graduated from South Dakota State and so did Joe’s two sons! He said it remains to be seen if his two grandsons will attend South Dakota State. Joe just celebrated his 91st birthday in Canada fishing with his sons and grandsons; a tradition they have experienced for 11 years now.

Amanda asked him to reminisce on some major events in the past several decades that Joe experienced. November 23, 1963, JFK Assassination: “It was a very sad occasion and he feels that many Americans, himself included, feel as though they have never really heard all of the facts about what happened.

July 20, 1969: The first man walked on the Moon: Joe and family were vacationing out in the Hills at a campground. Of course, there was no cable TV, phones, iPad, etc. in those days but the owner of the campground invited them to come into her office and watch the historic event on her television.

September 11, 2001: Joe was watching TV and saw a plane fly into one of the World Towers. He had turned on the TV after hearing something was happening, but what he saw was the second plane attack.

He was also asked about what event made the most impression on him in our area of the world and he replied, “the Rapid City Flood of 1972”. The reports of people who had died in the flood just kept rising all the time. It was something that happened so close to home.

The clock had run out on the interview and members thanked Joe and Amanda with a round of applause.

The club adjourned with singing America.

Asst. Sergeant at Arms again substituted for SAA Rebecca Brunsing who was moving a daughter to college. Scott fined the following: $2 to Francis Doom for a phone infraction at last week’s meeting

• $2 to Laura Wright for being so quiet and because he can fine her!

• $2 to Bill Frei who was apparently lost in Dante last weekend

• $2 to Jamie Soukup for going on vacation and saving on his payroll by making his Dad run the business

• $2 to Gerrit Juffer for wearing his white shirt on a spaghetti day

• $2 to Jerry Weber for missing his favorite meal which Scott had worked so hard to prepare

• $5 Happy Fine from Kathe Henke who went to see her son participate in his 10th Iron Man competition

• $5 Happy Fine from Jerry Henke that Kathe came back!

• $5 Happy Fine from Linda Soukup who will be attending their very first family wedding in Tyndall this coming weekend