Wagner Rotary Club had a distinguished guest on Wednesday, August 28th, for its weekly meeting. Ina Winter, newly elected District 5610 Governor was in Wagner as part of her tour of all Rotary clubs in the 5610 District which encompasses South Dakota, part of Iowa, and Minnesota. Other guests included Glen and Selby Hofer invited by Jerry Henke as the Hofers are leaving the Wagner area to live elsewhere. Glenn was a Rotarian for many years and was given a round of applause and wishes for safe travel. Ken Cotton brought Golby Uhlir a former District Governor as a guest, and Father Jim Fredrich of St. John’s Catholic Church was also made welcome.

President Bill Frei introduced Ina Winter who gave a few remarks pertaining to Rotary. She began by congratulating everyone on being a Rotarian, “which is a very special thing”. She remarked that John Hopkins reported that Rotary provides 47 Million volunteer hours a year which amounts to about $850 Million per year! Rotary is an efficient organization that specializes in problem solving. Being involved as a Rotarian gives joy to the recipient as well as joy to the giver. She spoke about how Rotary has become very flexible in todays world concerning club membership. Smaller communities can form satellite clubs to be affiliated with memberships in larger communities, e-clubs where people can make up meetings online, Rotaract clubs, and corporate clubs within companies.

Ina spoke about the Rotary Foundation which sets aside a few pennies from every one dollar donated to pay for administrative costs. This is a unique concept which allows the foundation to keep operating. Disaster grants are something new also. $25,000.00 grants are made with no matching funds. There was some bad news in the worldwide fight against polio. There were 70 cases of polio this past year. 58 of the cases were in Pakistan and the rest in Afghanistan. The good news was that Nigeria had gone three years without a case of polio which has made the continent of Africa polio-free.

Ina closed by saying that the pins on the tables were a gift from her and the theme for this Rotary year is “Rotary Connects the World”.

Former District Governor Golby Uhlir gave a presentation of a beautiful new Rotary bell to the Wagner Rotary Club.

Members then moved on to sing “Roll Rotary, Roll” and did a fair job without Laurie Kidd’s awesome piano abilities.

Sergeant at Arms Becky Brunsing passed out the annual football books. There were 9 books for each member to sell at $20.00 per book. Monday night football will begin soon so if you wish to purchase a book, contact a Rotary member as soon as possible!

SAA Brunsing then passed out her fines for the day:

Gerrit Juffer, $1 for a phone violation , Linda Soukup $1 for a poor joke about floundering with the Labor Day parade theme; Bill Frei $1 for a “sticker violation”; $1 to Jamie Soukup for not wanting to sit at an extra table, and $1 to Jordan Weber for complaining about sitting by Jamie; and the following Rotarians were fined $1 each for not making an appearance the past Wednesday evening to decorate the Rotary float for Wagner’s Labor Day parade: Craig Krsnak, Bill Frei, Bill Herrmann, Bryan Slaba, Jerry Henke, Jerry Weber, Laurie Kidd, Gerrit Juffer, Roger Wiltz, Jordan Weber, Scott McAdaragh, Rachel Woods, and Laura Wright. Patty Frei fined herself $1 for not having a lottery ticket to give to the loser of the Queen of Hearts drawing.

Happy Fines of $2 from Craig Krsnak for beating Wagner guys at golf; $4 from Becky Brunsing for DWU Tiger volleyball team beating four teams at a regional tournament of GPAC schools in Florida last week,

Patty Frei reported that $24.00 had been collected for the day bringing the Queen of Hearts drawing to the high sum of $842.00. Jerry Weber once again drew the lucky ticket but failed to draw the Queen. He drew a 9 of Clubs which leaves only 10 cards in the deck. Some lucky person is going to have a huge pot of money!

Patty also reported that Pastor Bill’s membership team stands at 9 misses and Pastor Laurie’s team has 11 misses. Patty also reported that our grant application for a new bin for aluminum cans was denied; but our application for a baseball park shelter was accepted! President Bill is presently working on welding together a new container for our cans, so it is a win-win situation for our club!

Program Chairman for the day, Jerry Henke, introduced Don and David Kocer from Kocer’s Fallen Timbers. Don and Dave brought some wood samples with them and talked about their woodworking projects. It has been a difficult spring and summer to work and refinish wood because of the high humidity. They have been in business for about a year now. The west side of their building is used for their wood shop where they have several saws and wood working machines. They have made some furniture from scratch which is available at the store. They also do projects for people who have certain requests for a specialty item. Don and David showed a 12-foot sample of an elm board that they salvaged and talked about the various kinds of wood available in our area.

The club adjourned in its usual fashion.