Gallipolis Rotary Club Inducts Sharon Shull
ADG Matt Willis inducted Sharon Shull into membership in the Gallipolis Rotary Club at today’s club meeting. Sharon is Program Director for Holzer Hospice. President Bonnie McFarland welcomed all our visitors to the meeting today including Visiting Rotarian Bill Knight from Pt. Pleasant; Anthony Armenius, MD, guest of James Wellington; Zac Fosler, guest of Melissa Kimmel; and Elaine Householder, our Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship applicant. Kevin Petrie provided the invocation for our meeting.
Annual District Assembly—President Bonnie reminded members the District Assembly is coming up next month—Saturday, April 17th, at the Ohio Christian University in Circleville. This is always an interesting meeting for officers as well as new members! Chuck Clark, Lou Ellen Werry, and PDG Mel Simon will be going and there is room for more! This is a great opportunity to learn more about the workings of Rotary.
Announcements—There will be a covered dish dinner for the Gallia County Red Cross Chapter on Saturday, March 27th at 6:00 pm at New Life Lutheran Church for all volunteers,board members, supporters, and donors.
Relay For Life Kick-Off—President Bonnie thanked everyone who attended yesterday’s kick-off luncheon for this year’s Relay For Life. We had a number of Rotarians there. Dave Smith and Kevin Petrie are team leaders for this year’s Rotary team. They will be needed your support for this event which takes place during the first weekend in June.
Donations For Relay Team—Our club is fortunate to have a great fund raising program thanks to Dan and Edna Whiteley. Members can donate household items which then go to the auction in Middleport. We have raised over $400.00 so far this year and we need more STUFF! Take a good look around your house, garage, basement, attic and Rotary will take it off your hands to support Relay For Life. Chuck Clark brought in more items today which had been gathering dust in his house!
Fellowship—Gordon Amsbary ran club fellowship for the meeting and collected a ‘late fine’ from Chris Marazon. Another fine was collected from Margaret Evans, but your intrepid scribe was clueless about the circumstances. Amidst the famous birthdays and TV trivia, President Bonnie purchased a Happy Buck. Shana Booher was recognized for a birthday this week and the club sang Happy Birthday. Dan Whiteley popped back in from taking a call and the entire club also sang Happy Birthday as today is his birthday.
Ambassadorial Scholarship Candidate—Chuck Clark introduced his guest, Elaine Householder, to the club. Elaine has completed the documentation and application which will be submitted to District 6690. We wish Elaine the best of luck for this valuable scholarship. Elaine spoke to Gallipolis Rotary several weeks ago about herself and her plans in seeking a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship.
Split-The-Pot—Jim Morrison ran STP for the meeting today and asked Elaine Householder to pull the winning ticket. Today’s winner of the $8.00 small pot was ADG Matt Willis! Matt carefully drew for the big pot of $131.00, but narrowly missed it by drawing the Ace of Hearts. The pot continues to grow for at least another week!
Program—Our Program Chair for the meeting was Dave Smith and he
introduced our special speaker, Keith Jeffers, Executive Director of the Gallia County Veterans Service Commission. The commission was created in 1886 originally to honor and care for veterans of the Civil War. Today, the local veterans commission operates with a $300,000 annual budget and a small staff out of offices in Spring Valley seeing to the emergency financial needs of 2700 veterans and assisting with transportation to VA medical centers. It is vital our county support our local veterans who sacrificed and served in defending our freedoms.