Events

Heather Flies has been the Junior High Pastor at Wooddale Church longer than many of her students have been alive. She began her ministry at Wooddale as the Junior High Associate in 1996. In 1998, she joined the pastoral team.

Outside the walls of Wooddale Church, Flies spends a great deal of time and energy as a communicator and has authored "I Want to Talk to My Teen About Girl Stuff" (Standard Publishing) in 2007. In the fall of 2011, her book for teenagers, "That’s What She Said/That’s What He Said," debuted with Summerside Press.

Flies is a graduate of Bethel University in St. Paul where she majored in Communication. She received her Masters of Arts in Theological Studies from Bethel Seminary, also in St. Paul.

She loves football, tennis, NASCAR racing and listening to Christmas music 11 months out of the year. Flies and her husband, Chad, live in Eden Prairie.

Alvin Abraham currently serves as the founding dean of the Dougherty Family College at the University of St. Thomas, which welcomed its inaugural class of students in August 2017. He also serves on The Collective’s National Advisory Board at Teach For America, the board of directors at Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, Teach For America Twin Cities, and Great MN Schools.

A veteran education leader, Abraham began his career as a 2002 Teach For America corps member in Houston, Texas. Prior to joining the team at the University of St. Thomas, Alvin was the executive director of KIPP Minnesota. He worked with KIPP since 2012, leading the organization through extensive growth and expansion.  Before moving to Minnesota, Alvin led one of Houston ISD’s schools in the Apollo 20 program, a bold initiative to transform public education in Houston, in partnership with Harvard University’s Education Innovation Laboratory. 

Abraham earned a BS from Texas A&M University and a Masters in Education from the University of Houston.  

The annual Area 3 Vocational Ethics Day meeting will be Thursday, April 18, at the Edina Country Club. This annual spring meeting begins at 11:30 a.m. and concludes at 1:30 p.m. All Area 3 Rotary club members are welcome to attend, and area high schools are encouraged to have their students attend the meeting. In 2018, more than 200 participants attended, including high school students from Bloomington, Eden Prairie, Edina, and Richfield.

Stay tuned for information on this year's keynote speaker at the event.

For more information, contact Dan Hallberg at 952-541-0352.

Jim Souhan is a sports columnist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He has worked at the paper since 1990, previously covering the Twins and Vikings.

Souhan was Sports Editor of his high school paper at Vianney in St. Louis. He wrote and edited for the Missourian at the University of Missouri, where he earned a journalism degree with an emphasis on American literature.

The third chief executive officer to lead the former Padilla Speer Beardsley since its founding in 1961, Lynn Casey led the company through the largest acquisition of its history when it combined with CRT/tanaka in September 2013 to form Padilla, as well as several acqusitions since. Casey's reputation for building, growing and protecting successful brands comes from her ability to listen, strategize and shoot straight. She works with Padilla clients around the country and in a variety of industries. She also advocates for clients and their issues in our headquarters community, where she serves on several nonprofit boards and is active in many business and civic organizations.

She will speak about "Why Servent Leadership Serves Us Well."

Currently Casey serves as past board chair of the Greater Twin Cities United Way, vice chair of the University of Minnesota Foundation, and serves on the board of Mia (Minneapolis Institute of Art). She is an active member of the Minnesota Women’s Economic Roundtable and the Itasca Project. She also serves on the board of Walman, a leader in the optical industry and one of Minnesota’s largest ESOP organizations. Professional involvement at the national level includes the PR Council board and, currently, the board of the Arthur Page Society.

In 2014, a University of Minnesota undergraduate named Abby Honold was raped at an off-campus apartment by a fellow student. Minneapolis police arrested the suspect, but released him a few days later. It would take a year before an investigator from another police department picked up Honold’s case and helped bring her rapist to justice.

In reporting that story, Star Tribune reporters heard from several law enforcement sources that sexual assault investigations in Minnesota deserved further scrutiny.

Over the past year, the Star Tribune has examined more than 1,400 rape and sexual assault case files from the 20 law enforcement agencies across Minnesota that reported the highest number of sexual assault reports to the FBI.

Using a public-records request, reporters obtained every rape report from 2015 and 2016 that Minneapolis and St. Paul police departments considered closed. For the other agencies, the Star Tribune examined a random sample from the same years.

A reporter or editor read each of the files, screening out any cases that involved children or incest, were deemed unfounded by police, or that remain under investigation. We logged key details from the cases, such as whether there was physical evidence; whether suspects or witnesses were interviewed, and whether charges were ever filed.

In assessing those case files, the reporters relied on best-practice investigative guidelines developed by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and an advocacy group called End Violence Against Women International. The reporters also attended a two-day law enforcement seminar about investigating sexual assault. We also asked 13 veteran investigators and prosecutors from across the United States to review and comment on more than 160 of the Minnesota cases.

In addition to the case files, reporters and editors examined hundreds of pages of court records and police documents and interviewed more than 100 assault survivors, sex crimes investigators, jurists, women’s advocates and academic researchers. Rape survivors were identified in these stories only if they specifically agreed to the use of their names for publication.

Three of the reporters who wrote the series for the Star Tribune will share the process with our group, and what changes have occurred since the series was published in July 2018.

Go here for links to the series and additional information.

Save the date! The Rotary Club of Edina Family Picnic is set for Thursday, June 20, 2019! 

Make sure to plan to bring your kids and grandkids! The picinic is for Rotarians and their families!

For more information on the event, contact Social Director Renee Harberts.

There is no Rotary Club of Edina regular meeting on Thursday, June 20.

As the 2018-2019 Rotary year comes to an end, the Rotary Club of Edina presidency will transition from John Flynn to Josh Sprague. Josh will serve as president from July 1, 2019 though June 30, 2020.

Outgoing Club and Foundation board members will also be honored at the meeting. And incoming board members will be welcomed.