HIGHLIGHTS OF THE 2006-2007 YEAR


RI Theme: Lead the Way

In a very compassionate and personal way President Randy Klibert led the Rotary Club of Galveston on the way through its 94th year of Service above Self. Randy was assisted by Roney McCrary (who continued to serve as Assistant Governor), six Officers, 10 Directors, and 39 Committees. In addition, as for the previous 17 years, Jack Bushong was of invaluable help as the club’s Executive Secretary. Randy’s leadership as president earned him the club’s 14th consecutive Rotary International Presidential Citation Award for Balanced Club Achievement.

As of June 1, 2007, the club had 150 members, which is one member more than at the beginning of the year (July 1, 2006). The club welcomed 17 new members: Helen Appleberg, Mario Concha, Dianna Davis, Gigi Heffernan, Chuck Herrera, Mike Kemp, Barbara Lober, Dustin Miller, May O’Keefe, Phyllis Pepin, Arnold Proctor, Barbara Sasser, Margo Snider, Lesley Sommer, Bert Sweetman, Latonia Wilson, and Allan Worley. On the other hand, 16 members resigned: Peggy Baldwin, Douglas Baumann, Nita Caskey, Marsh Davis, Kathy Fry, Albert Hervey, Michelle Hicks, Robert Hoskins, Elva LeBlanc, Bruce Mauzy, Ray Meador, Dustin Miller, Raju Samuel, Ron Streibich, Kurt Voss, and Latonia Wilson; also one honorary member (William Crawmer) resigned. Sadly, three long-standing members died: Past District Governor Chester Burns, Bernie Demoratsky, and Howard Knapp; they were members of the club for respectively 36, 65, and 56 years); all three are thoroughly missed.

Vice-President Bets Anderson put an interesting and well-received program together. Speakers included our own Jennifer Goodman, Mike Guarino, Brett Kirkpatrick, Elva LeBlanc, Juan Peña, Ray Pinard, Fred Raschke, and Lesley Sommer. Other speakers included: William Auvenshine, Mike Berberich, Stan Blazyk, Mike Boulton, Neal Carlson, Lynne Cleveland, Matt Crable and Tim Legg, Mark Davis, Major Elda Flores and Chris Doyle, Joe Grisaffi, Ed Jamison and Lou McBeth, Dwayne Jones, Jim Kern, Judge Janice Law, Steve LeBlanc, Bowen Loftin, Oliver Luck, Betty Massey, District Governor Jack McCullough, Anne Meng, Tyeshia Miller, Peter Mott, Ron Pearrow, Vivian Pinard and Mary Patrick, Jeff Sjostrom, John Stobo, Kenne Turner, Susan Vaughan and the Galveston Island Children Chorus, David Wallace, Christine West and Clint Willour, Katie Winslade, and Brian Zachariah.

Classification Talks (well organized by Natalie Wiest) featured Donna Foley, Jonathan Hale, Sean O’Donohoe, and Keith Pope.

President Randy held a Club Assembly on July 12, and on October 18 Past-President Brett Kirkpatrick, as Chair of the “2013 Committee”, discussed plans for the 100th Anniversary of our club in 2013. District Governor Jack McCullough visited our club on August 23. As always, no meetings were held on Thanksgiving (November 22) and on Christmas / New Year (December 27 and January 3).

Kevin Katz organized three evening socials, one at his Texas State Optical business on September 30 (right before the Art Walk), another on March 9 at Fisherman’s Wharf, and a wine tasting at D’Vine Wine on April 12. The many club members who did not attend these socials missed three great fellowship events.

A special VIT social of the club’s foundation took place on July 29. A big “Thank you” to Fred and Kim Raschke for having opened their beautiful new “Evia” home for this great event. And another fun-filled social was the annual “Sean O’Donohoe Bus Trip” to the Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo on March 17.

As of April 30, 2007, the Galveston Rotary Foundation, Inc. had a positive balance of $482,297.77. The 2006-2007 Trustees of the Foundation included Fred Raschke (President), Linda Ott-Thompson (Secretary), Mike Cowan (ex-officio), Mike Guarino, Brett Kirkpatrick (ex-officio), Randy Klibert (ex-officio), and V.J. Tramonte. The trustees allocated a total of $14,775 for support of club projects and community organizations, including: three scholarships for students and support of graduation projects at Ball and O’Connell High Schools; Big Brothers / Big Sisters Bowlathon; Galveston County Science & Engineering Fair; Texas A&M Sea Camp, the 8th Annual Moody Memorial Medical Care Mission to Bolivia; Camp Rad UTMB; Our Daily Bred; three Paul Harris Fellowships; the Grand’s Kids Festival; and the hospital in Mulukuku, Nicaragua.

Most money for the club’s Foundation came from two fundraisers. Our 31st Chili Supper and Silent Auction took place on November 1 in the Ball High School Cafeteria; it netted about $20,000. Rusty Carnes and Sean O’Donohoe did a great job as co-chairs, as did Dianna Davis organizing the Silent Auction. Of course, many other club members were involved. President Randy Klibert gave a special “Thank You” to: Jeff Pennington (music); Marshall Monroe (moon walk and face painting); Keith Pope (book give-away); Juan Peña and Ruth Finkelstein (dessert); Jake Walsdorf (condiments and beverages); Mike Cowan, Bobby Enriquez, and John Zendt (serving line); George Ritz (greeters); John Bannon and Larry Jendrusch (ticket sales and financials); and VJ Tramonte (chili chef). As last year, the staff of the Ball High School Kitchen (headed up by Glenda) and members of the Galveston Seaborne ChalleNGe Corps, were of tremendous help. Our door prizes netted another $3,684.00 (as of May 16, 2007). “Thank you” to Virginia and Erik Van Kuijk for having perfectly organized this activity, to Lee Weber who – with a smile – sold us door prize “tickets” even when buying tickets was not really on our minds, and to all the club members who donated the prizes.

Our special “Meals-on-Wheels” luncheon on December 13 raised $6,000 for the Edgewater Meals-on-Wheels Program. Thank you Ray Pinard for your ever present enthusiasm (and of course “Amen”) and Patrick Williams (trumpet), Charlie Delgado (saxophone) and Bonnye Karger (piano) for your beautiful music. For the club’s annual “Toys for Tots” drive, club members donated 100 toys and $250.

The 49th Galveston Island Spelling Bee contest took place on March 5 in the Rosenberg Library. Winner was Loraine Maxwell. The event was co-sponsored by our Rotary club, as was the Galveston College and The Work Source Career Fair on April 19.

As for several years, John Augelli organized the Beach Clean-Up on April 28; he had helping Rotary hands from Pat Bumpus, Brett Kirkpatrick, Karen Mahoney, and Jake Walsdorf.

This year, Warnessa Freeman (Ball High School), Natalie Gariby (O’Connell Consolidated High School) and Ashley Willis (Communities in Schools) received the club’s High School Scholarships, and Michael Merittee (Ball High School) was honored as the club’s “Teacher of the Year”. Michael Brown (Ball High School) received a $500 matching award to supplement his United States Presidential Scholarship for Excellence. The club also recognized three city employees with a Rotary Award for their exceptional service: Joel Caldwell (Police Officer of the Year), Mike Dricks (Civilian Employee of the Year), and Charles Olsen (Firefighter of the Year).

With Dan Cote’s and Ruth Finkelstein’s help, the club continued to sponsor the Interact Club at O’Connell Consolidated High School. This year, its President was Andy Schweitzer.

Our club sponsored another wonderful Youth Exchange Student: Shuhei Yokota from Galveston’s sister city Niigata in Japan. He very much enjoyed staying for the entire year with his host parents Mike and Nancy Hughes. The activities he liked the most were playing tennis at Ball High School, socializing with friends, eating, and a revitalizing long sleep. Ulli Budelmann served as Shuhei’s counselor and legal guardian. Together with Ulli, Shuhei attended the District Youth Exchange activities in Galveston, at Crystal Lake near Palestine, in Nacogdoches (District Conference), in Tulsa, Oklahoma (where he met almost 200 other Rotary Youth Exchange students from 29 Rotary Districts at the South Central Rotary Youth Exchange [SCRYE] meeting); they also participated in a long weekend in San Antonio and on an exotic animal farm near Fredericksburg.

For the first time that the club historian can remember, our club sponsored an outbound youth exchange student from Galveston: Gulnara Fayzulina. For one year – by chance – she went to the same city, where our inbound student came from: Niigata in Japan.

Jack Bushong and Fred Raschke went to the Philippines (March 1-10) to attend the 44th International Rotary Golfing Fellowship. Special “VIP” helicopter flights over the island were arranged for them and, for Fred, certainly made up for the fact that he – with one arm in a sling – could not hit a single ball. On October 19 Dan Cote joined David Standlee (from the Huntsville Rotary Club) on a short trip to Nicaragua to inspect the water well project of our District.

In early August, our former (2001-2002) exchange student from France, Anne Judlin, came back to Galveston. She stayed with her host parents Mike and Nancy Hughes for a month and regularly attended our club meetings during that time.

This year our club sponsored 20 high school students to participate in an all-expenses-paid RYLA weekend campout on January 5-7 at Pineywoods Baptist Encampment in Woodlake, Texas. 16 Students were from Ball High School: Frank Bohn, Ashleigh Cano, Shannon Curtis, Andrew Dearman, Chantal Frank, Carlos Lira, Melissa O'Neal, Stewart Pagan, Monica Rios, Paul Roberts, Thinh Tran, Carter Ware, Lane Ware, Sally Webber, our exchange student Shuhei Yokota, and Sadaf Zendehdel; and 4 students were from O'Connell Consolidated High School: Anna Hogan, Rachel Kelly, Robert LaPorte, and Mary Elizabeth Murphy. Our 20 student were chaperoned by Ray Pinard and Juan Peña, with additional help from Pat Bumpus, Randy Klibert, Marshall Monroe, Irma Ortiz, and Elise Ott. They joined 224 students from other High Schools in the District and about 40 adults, and all enjoyed an “Oh, we feel so good” RYLA weekend and training.

Several of our club members continued to serve at District 5910 level. Roney McCrary was Assistant Governor for District Governor Jack McCullough. Ulli Budelmann was Inbound Coordinator on the Youth Exchange Committee, member of the Ambassadorial Scholarship Selection Committee, and Chair of the Archives Development; the District archive (as well as the club archive) is still housed in our Rotary Office.

From May 2-8, our club hosted a wonderful GSE Team from District 3200 in southern India: Harris PM (Padiyath Mohammed Ali), a lawyer, and Jayagopal Chandrasekharan, a trainer, both from Calicut, Silvi Joseph, a lawyer, from Kerala, Pamela Suresh, a trainer, from Tamilnadu, and team leader Sen Thomas from Cochin. B&B for the team was provided by Ulli Budelmann, Jonathan Hale and Erik & Virginia Van Kuijk. A district-wide farewell reception for the team was held on May 6 in Ulli Budelmann’s home; this event was co-sponsored by the Island Rotary Club.

At a special ceremony on May 30 in the Rotary Labyrinth Garden at the William Temple Episcopal Center, PDG Chester Burns’ name was added to the “William H. Felts, Jr. Heart of Rotary” memorial in honor of his unselfish devotion, loyalty and distinguished service to our Rotary Club. Chester is the third recipient of this award.

This year, Ulli Budelmann was one of the 28 recipients of the District “Roll of Fame” award in recognition for his “Loyal and Dedicated Service and Devotion to the Ideals of Rotary”.

The recipients of the club’s three Paul Harris Fellowships were Sean O’Donohoe, George Ritz and Otie Zapp, in honor of their special service to the club.

For his many contributions, e.g., raising funds for the club’s foundation and providing a Texas-size stretch limo for club activities, Rusty Carnes was named the 2006-2007 Club’s Most Valuable Member.

For special service or achievements, President Randy pinned roses on Bets Anderson, Marsh Davis, Elva LeBlanc, and Bill Leopold.

The activities at our club meetings were again carefully documented and beautifully illustrated in the weekly PILOT bulletin. We owe Dan Cote more than a million “Thank Yous” for his steadfast dedication in putting together such an informative weekly bulletin. Dan was assisted by several club members who served as reporters or occasionally filled in as camera men. At the District Conference, the PILOT was recognized as the second best “large club” bulletin in the District.

Living Rotary’s motto “Service above Self”, many of our club members served our Galveston community through voluntary participation in charitable, civic and professional organizations. Here are a few examples that were published in the Galveston County Daily News: Tom Schwenk became the first certified Eco Brocker® in Galveston, Chambers and Harris counties; Bets Anderson followed Armin Cantini as President of the Galveston Historical Foundation; VJ Tramonte was honored with the Galveston Chambers of Commerce ‘s Business Leadership Award; he also received the Christie Mitchell Award; Jerry Mohn was recognized by Clean Galveston; Mike Guarino was honored by Big Brothers / Big Sisters with a reception; HomeTown Bank made a $20,000 contribution to the Salvation Army in honor of Jack Miller; Bill Leopold received the Spirit of Galveston Historical Foundation Award, and Carolyn Clyburn was honored with the Steel Oleander Award; Norman Koneman was the College of the Mainland Foundation 2006 Donor of the Year; Fred Raschke was appointed Board Member of the Moody National Bank; Carlos Peña continued to serve as Vice-President of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA); Ulli Budelmann served as President of the Galveston Symphony Orchestra; Bets Anderson, Roland Bassett, Buddy Benson, Rusty Carnes, Bill Leopold, Jack Miller, and Fred Raschke served on the Board of the Galveston Salvation Army; Ruth Finkelstein was Vice-President of The Strand Theater and she also served on the Board of the Galveston Seafarers Center; Kurt Sistrunk, Norma Venso, and Zoula Zein-Eldin served on the Board of the Family Service Center; Otie Zapp was President of the Galveston Windstorm Action Committee; Jerry Mohn was President of the West Galveston Island Property Owners Association and served as Vice-Chair for Business Development of the Galveston Chamber of Commerce; David Murphey was Chairman of the Galveston County Economic Alliance; Rabbi Jimmy Kessler (President) and Ray Pinard (Treasurer) were elected by the Galveston Ministerial Association; and the many others whose recognition slipped the GCDN’s or the club historian’s attention.

On a regular basis, Ruth Finkelstein encouraged us to donate (needless to say “high quality”) Rotary blood to the UTMB blood bank. No doubt, many patients at UTMB are thankful to Ruth for that service. Organized by Sherry Bowman and Kathie Fry, many club members participated in the annual “Bell Ringing”; their efforts netted $1,438.33 for the Salvation Army.

As last year, many club’s accomplishments were highlighted in a special 12-page insert in the Galveston County Daily News published on June 28, 2007. The club again owes Robyn Bushong big “Thank you” for this outstanding insert.

In summary, congratulations Randy for having so compassionately “led us the way” through another successful Rotary year.

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