Today, March 3^rd, is surprise Rotary President Day for The Rotary Club of Everett. President Carrie Radcliff, of the Rotary Club of South Everett/Mukilteo and Publisher of The Daily Herald, stepped in today in place of President Kelli Thode who was in Montana taking care of her grandchild. Back in November President Kelli led the meeting of The South Everett/Mukilteo Club as their guest President.

 

President Carrie led us in the Pledge of Allegiance and into our 34th meeting of the year and our 5,634th meeting of the Rotary Club of Everett. There were 26+/- Rotarians and guests and 5+/- Rotarian ZOOMERS in attendance.

 

Past President John Olson gave us a brief verbal and visual journey of our club’s history. Our founders first met at Weiser’s Café which sat at the NW corner of Hewitt and Wetmore. The building is gone but the pro perty, now a parking lot, is owned by one of own

Rotarians, Andy Skotdal.  In the 1980’s under the leadership of Sandford Wright our club’s fundraiser involved the construction of a house to sell that was built by the carpentry class from Everett High School. This endeavor netted $35,000.00 for the club and invaluable experience to all the members of the carpentry class. The cleaning up of Rotary Park,

along the Snohomish River in Lowell, started as a trail project and turned into an annual park clean up that involved many Rotarians, Interact members, and guests.  At the conclusion of the cleanup, we had a BBQ. All in all, it has been remembered as a fun social event that contributed to the beautification of the park.  We’ll possibly resurrect this project in the near future.

 

A very outgoing J.J. Frank, a current member of the Marysville Rotary Club, introduced himself.  He said he would like to transfer his membership to our club.

 

Past President John introduced guests Minh Ly and Ken McClure who work for BECU and will soon be members of our Club.

 

Janice Ellis would like your participation on Saturday evening March 7^th to support the SnoCo YES 2025 students and their international humanitarian service project in rural Guatemala.  The event is called “Luck O’ The Irish Game Night” to be held at Peace Lutheran Church in Silvana and is sponsored By Snohomish County Rotary Clubs.

 

Janice was recently in Thailand where she attended a Rotary meeting and was presented with their Club’s Banner, which Janice presented to our club.  The Thailand Club’s banner read Chiang Mai International District 3360.

 

Janice also presented for auction two hand woven scarf’s made by indigenous people in rural Thailand. The auction will take place at our meeting on March 10^th. Bring money, be generous.

 

President Carrie reminded us of the District 5050 Conference May 1st-3^rd at Harrison Hot Springs in B.C.

 

President Elect Kari Petrasek kicked off the annual Fundraiser which will be throughout the month of March. The goal this year is to raise over $50,000.00 through club member pledges.  Please see the pledge form that Kari sent to all of us on March 1^st, along with further information about the Fundraiser, On April 2^nd there will be an in-person event at the Imagine Children’s Museum starting at 5:30 pm. This is when prizes will be drawn and we’ll have the entire museum to ourselves. Guests and children are invited to come. Please RSVP for this event online. Kari would love to see at least 250 people at this event.

 

Betsy Baker- Bold was $10.00 happy to have had a skiing vacation to Colorado, meeting up with her cousin and seeing her uncle, Marc’s brother. 

 

Kari P. was also happy to have had a ski vacation to Park City even though it rained one of the days.

 

Kari Quaas was $20.00 happy for the community events happening this spring, please see the brochures she passed out at today’s meeting). She was also happy to have attended Zeb’s service and to have seen the respect and support he and his family were given by the community.

 

Krissy Davis was happy to continue a tradition with her daughter (for the last 16 years) of spending a recent weekend in Langley and participating in the weekend murder mystery.

 

Past President Steve Miller was $10.00 happy for his ski trip to Beaver Creek and for Ibuprofen to help his weary bones make it happen.

 

Janice had Sad Dollars for Zeb’s passing and Happy Dollars for her travel adventure to Thailand.

 

Paul Stoot had Sad Dollars for the Reverend Jessie Jackson’s passing.

 

J.J. Frank had Happy Dollars to be attending our meeting today and Sad Dollars for Betty Cobb who he asked to keep in our prayers as she deals with the loss of Zeb.

 

President Carrie was happy to here today and thanked P.P. Steve Miller for the wonderful party he and his wife had hosted sometime back.

 

President Kelli, via ZOOM, was $109.00 happy to celebrate our Club’s 109^th anniversary.

 

Ashley Bolden drew the winning tickets that belonged to the following Rotarians.

 

Winner number 1 - P. P. Steve Miller selected the steak knives.

 

Winner number 2 - Heather Barnhart picked something but I didn’t catch what it was. I thought I heard something about a trip to Europe but I’m not sure.

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Winner number 3 - Betsy got the bottle of rum.

 

The cupboards are getting bare, please donate items for the Raffle, especially a trip to Europe.

 

Past President Michael Kvistad was the Ken Jennings of the Trivia match between four hastily put together teams and more rapidly named teams.  There were 5-6 categories and questions worth up to 90 points. The questions and answers, I understand, were put together by P.P. John, President Kelli, and a non-Rotarian who called himself/herself AI.   It was fun and educational.

  

Snohomish County Office of Social Justice, presented by Wil Johnson

 

Visting President Carrie adjourned the meeting at 12:58 PM

 

Respectfully Submitted,

 

Photography Submitted by.