Mary Swendsen, Invocation Presenter
President Josh Sprague kicked off the meeting, raucously as always, reminding us that our upcoming Gala is now less than 60 days away. Get your tickets soon -- still discounted until the end of the month! Mary Swendsen led us in a pithy invocation about being a leader, and Michael Stanzak introduced our visiting Rotarians and guests (more than a dozen), asking them to briefly announce their favorite MN State Fair food, in honor of today’s Fair opener. Josh announced that earlier this week the board approved Lisa Walker as chair of Community Service Projects, replacing the departing Kenny Smith.
Michael Stanzak, Treasurer with Kris McCreary
New member Sita Dash gave a very brief introduction of his company, UAS Labs, which is in the probiotics industry and one of the presenting sponsors of this year‘s Gala! It now has over 200 employees, as the awareness and markets for probiotics have grown sharply in the last several years. Another presenting sponsor of this year‘s Gala is the Tankenoff Family Foundation, and member Scott Tankenoff gave a brief announcement about the philanthropic giving of their foundation, including why they have supported Rotary as a way to give back to the community.
Susan Stiles made a brief announcement that the Rotary class of 2017-18 is embarking on a new project to plant daffodils around the Centennial Lakes Clock Tower, which our club commissioned five years ago.
Wooj Byun introduced our speaker, Rudy Boschwitz, US senator for two terms. Boschwitz gave a wonderful presentation of his topic "Magnificent America". He described the research by the organization Freedom Home which found that since 1975 the number of democracies worldwide has grown dramatically, from 40 to 88, in addition to 58 partial democracies. Boschwitz made the case that wars are not started by democracies, but rather from the "Not free" countries. Also, economic freedom tends to accompany political freedom, which has led to drastic reduction in poverty across the globe.
He explained Abraham Lincoln's phrase “Let 'em up easy“, to describe the approach to rebuilding the South after the Civil War, and how The Treaty of Versailles ending The Great War was not in that spirit. This, unfortunately, helped to precipitate World War II less than 25 years later. He also discussed the importance of the Marshall Plan at the end of WWII, in rebuilding US and Allied relationships with Japan and Germany, in particular, as well as the Defense Umbrella in keeping US boots on the ground as a way to forge relationships and keep the peace on the European and Asian continents. He emphasized how crucial it is for US to have a clear and robust foreign policy today, to help spread additional democracies worldwide. Ann Platt thanked Senator Boschwitz for his important reminder about democracy.
Ann Platt, 62nd President 2016-17, thanked Senator Boschwitz.
Marty Kupper and Kip Peterson, the Raffle Kings - Be sure to pick yours up!
Buy your Gala Sponsorship ticket's today! Gary Pedersen, Gala co-chair, is worried.