Greeters were: Guy Everingham and Jan Hartzell.

The inspirational moment was provided by Dale Tomlinson  as he read a poem by his friend Densley Palmer 

“Seeing the Larger Whole”

When will we understand that we
Are tiles within a whole
Mosaic of all who dwell on earth
Within one sacred soul.

Or own uniqueness is not gift
That we should venerate
It is by joining with all things
We sacred celebrate.

We prize salvation for ourselves
As if life’s only goal
When we should view our aim within
Salvation for the all.

As people, nations we will not
Bring concord to the earth
Until all join in sacred hymn
That honors each life’s worth.

The flag salute was led by Jeff Long

Darrick Price conducted member recognition. Tom Hellie, whose birthday is on the 22nd and Brian Owen whose birthday is on the 25th were both missing. So, only  Gary Rueter was present to be recognized for his birthday on the 21st.. There were no anniversaries to be recognized this week.

 

Kelly Odegaard has a few things to celebrate. He wanted to thank Bob Emrick and WOW for donating a safety vest for one of the Oakwood Country Place residents, a gentleman who enjoys riding his bike around downtown McMinnville and will now be much safer thanks to the bright reflective vest. One of Kelly’s daughters works as a sign language interpreter and had the honor of interpreting for Michelle Obama as she gave a presentation to the Department of Transportation in D.C. And finally, both of his daughters have recently become engaged and both are planning 2009 weddings. He won’t turn down any contributions to the upcoming nuptials!

LV Van Blaricom announced that Onpoint Credit Union is sponsoring a children’s Relay for Life team this summer. There is a big bucket in their lobby—she’s encouraging contributions. She’ll have more news about raffle tickets and prizes at an upcoming meeting.

Jill Methven announced a Spring Equinox event at Zenith Vineyards in the Eola Hills. The date is Friday, March 20^th and the cost is just $25.00 per person for a fabulous evening of food, wine, music and fun. She says it’s a “smokin’ deal!”

Prez Chuck had to brag about his three remarkable children.  His oldest has a 4.0 average and is ranked first in her class. The other two, who are students at Duniway Middle School, have 4.0 and 3.86 averages. Chuck claims none of the credit. “The best thing I did was to marry their mother. They get it all from her,” he says modestly.

Lee Means reminded us about the Portland Cello Project Friday evening. It’s a benefit for the Linfield Spring Break Disaster Relief Fund, which send students to disaster areas for service work during the holiday.

Kristy Brill stood up for McMinnville’s own, Elmo the Emu, who’s made the Fox 12 News recently.

Also in the news: Evergreen Aviation’s “Weatherbug”,  a weather camera high atop the new hangar out at the McMinnville airport. Ken Till explained how to find the Weatherbug (besides getting a view from its eye on Channel 6 news): go to the museum’s website, www.sprucegoose.org and scroll down to Weatherbug. You will get real time weather, wind, barometric pressure—all that stuff you can’t see from your windowless cubicle at the office!

At the close of Brags and Announcements, Darrick Price gleefully announced that he had an anecdote with which to torture us. He said that if the membership could raise $20 for Pennies for Polio, he would forego his story this time. Hands dove into pockets and handbags faster than you could say “Spare me!” and he had over $20 in very short order. This time, he sat down to truly heartfelt applause.

Brent Adams gave a Guatemala Relief Trip update: Prez Chuck, Brent Adams, Jill Methven and 40 other members of the team will leave the end of February. There are medical and dental teams, electricity and construction teams, a water quality team and a micro-credit team. Together they will have a significant impact on the quality of life in the village they visit. With matching grants, they are taking over $46,000 to assist the villagers. Prez Chuck and Brent Adams will be the official Blogging Correspondents. Prez Chuck informed us that his new nickname is “Scoop” Pattishall. He’s been futzing in the Blogosphere  and on the Flikr photo sharing website, trying to get himself squared away before they head out. Meanwhile Brent is proud of the fact that he knows which end of a shovel goes in the ground. (They ought to do just fine!)

President Chuck unveiled a thank you from Melinda Keaton’s 4^th grade class at Columbus Elementary. They wanted to thank our club for the dictionaries they received

President Chuck reminded all of us about the Flag Pole groundbreaking ceremony Friday afternoon at 2:00 pm. There will be a public dedication next month.

Liz Hodgins and the Interact students, Bethany, Aimee and Austin Palacios and Dominic Allen, presented a $250.00 check to Tricia Harrop for the YCAP Food bank.

Cheyenne Whisenhunt, outbound student headed to Brazil, and Ricky Bodle, outbound student headed to Chile, recounted their group snow trip over the weekend. They made new friends, made presentations to other high schools and had a great time learning to ski (or not!) Ricky has a date with an Inbound Student from Argentina to watch the Academy Awards—and maybe practice Spanish? Both students thanked the club for the opportunity they have to participate in the Youth Exchange Program. Prez Chuck recalled fondly that it seemed only yesterday that HE was heading off for his own Exchange. (Yeah, right!) He also mentioned that we have an email from one of our outbound students, which he plans to read at the next meeting.

Just before introducing the program, President Chuck read a cartoon that Dale Tomlinson gave him. It’s a “Calvin and Hobbes” and told the story of the kid trying to sell lemonade for $15.00 per glass. The punch line was that after explaining all the reasons his quality was bad and his prices were high, and failing to sell a single glass, he went home and told his mother, “You’ll have to subsidize me.” Depressingly accurate. Click on the cartoon or here to see the entire cartoon

MAIN EVENT

President Chuck then introduced our program. Steve Rupp, from the McMinnville Downtown Association Committee for Public Art (MDACPA), discussed the project to bring public art to McMinnville. The committee is comprised of 7 members: Steve Rupp, Stuart Jacobson, Kris Gullo, Connie Keyes, Sharon Morgan, Larry Williams and Rob Stephenson.

This project has been very successful, considering that it is only 18 months along. There are 4, almost 5, permanent public sculptures placed and 6 honorariums. An honorarium costs $750 per year and may be renewed for the 2^nd year but won’t be in place more than 2 years.

One of the honorariums, “Dreaming” is the little girl reading a book out in front of the Library. The first permanent piece to be placed was “Garden Rabbit”, a darling little bunny donated by Steve Rupp. Once he demonstrated his commitment to the project, other pieces soon followed.  One of the more visible honorariums is the Benjamin Franklin sculpture at the Bank Plaza downtown. That’s been a very popular installation, as people sit down on the bench to have their picture snapped with Benjamin.

Two of the pieces hang outside businesses. One is “Rhapsody” by Totem Shriver, hanging outside Red Fox Bakery. The other Totem Shriver piece is “Words on the Weather” a tribute to the late John Day which hangs outside Third Street books.

One of the honorariums is Stuart Jacobson’s “Entropy” and he does not like to hear it referred to as “The Donut.”

The group is making plans to write grants and raise funds to purchase more artwork. Two projects which need funding are Luke Zimmerman’s plans to create a Grizzly Bear for the McMinnville High School campus and a mural, which will be installed in the new Civic Building downtown. There are 3 finalists for the mural, down from the original 19. The winner will be determined soon.

 

Steve thanked many people for their support of this project: the community, the donors and especially Kent Taylor and the City Council for their leadership on this ambitious project. After the presentation, Steve signed a book for the club and was thrilled to accept his Rotary pen.

 

Rotary eClub of District 3310 - Singapore

Rotary eClub of London Centenary - London (Zone 18 - 1120)

Rotary eClub of District 3450 - Hong Kong

Rotary eClub of Southwest - Arizona (Zone 25 - 5510)

Rotary eClub of District 5450 - Colorado (Rotary eClub One charter)

Rotary eClub of Tampa Bay - Florida, Georgia, Caribbean Islands (Zone 34 - 6950)

Rotary eClub of District 7890 - Connecticut

Rotary eClub of Zente-Hellenas - Greece (Zone  10-2470) in English or Greek