The sun wakes up early in southern Arizona these days, and that makes it easier to pop out of bed, get all gussied up and get to Rotary on time. So much easier. What? Not really?
 
President Mary Straus was definitely awake and got us started promptly at 7am. Or 7:05am. Anyway, Tony Hunter chose a wonderful song to sing, “Stand by Me.” We did our best with it and cheered for ourselves when we finished. This was either a case of wishful thinking or a demonstration of group delusion. But it really didn’t matter, we were happy in the end and that’s what counts.
 
Nana’s Kitchen owner and Rotarian Javier Teran explained the upcoming renovations to the restaurant. We’ll be careful.
 
Our Club has a Foundation which is useful for holding funds for projects. Rotary International also has a Foundation, and it’s important to understand the difference. As carefully pointed out again today, Maeve Johnson is President of the Club Foundation and Randy Brooks is in charge of our contributions to the RI Foundation. Maeve and Randy are not the same person, as it turns out. Good to know. Maeve announced that she and Harold Burtzloff have been updating the Foundation bylaws, which is quite a big job.
 
 
Calendar Update
Sat May 21
Installation of our new President, Mary Straus (her full term year) and new board members, 10am at Mary’s house.
Sun May 28 – Jun 1
The Rotary International Convention in Seoul, Korea. Members Don Jorgensen, Randy Brooks, and Mary Straus will be attending.
Tues May 31
In honor of the 5th Tues of the month, our breakfast meeting will NOT be held. Instead, we'll meet for an evening social, at Bianchi’s on Tangerine at Thornydale. See you there around 5:30pm.
 
 
Breaking News
Randy Brooks announced that our very own Matus Bogar, amazing exchange student from Slovakia, was named the Marana High School most valuable player in tennis. This is doubly amazing since Matus had never before played tennis. Wow, what will he do next?
 
 
 
Dan Contorno pointed out that today’s election included a ballot proposition regarding school funding or something. He took a position on said proposition and made his case. Mary then gave a somewhat different perspective. Now, you might think at this point that some sort of loud argument or physical melee ensued. After all, it’s politics. But, everyone remained polite, thoughtful, and respectful. Weird, huh?
 
Strange but True: Happy Bucks
John Dooling missed our meeting last week, which is quite unusual. Was it hunting season of some sort? No. Was it a bad batch of squirrel gravy? Not at all. John and wife Cindy have several dozen grandchildren, who all came down with the flu. The Club Secretary forgets whether John himself was sick or not.
Tony Hunter shared a story about his girlfriend and his parents. Since we wouldn’t want to do any additional damage to an already delicate situation, we won’t go into further detail here. In fact, we probably shouldn’t mention it at all. But it was good that Tony wanted to share with the rest of us, wasn’t it?
 
Guest Speaker
A few weeks ago we heard from our very own longtime Rotarian John Zwick, who left us on the edge of our seats with an unfinished story. So today Mary asked him to tell us the rest of his story, which spans several decades and two or three countries. After many years in Canada, and a few in Australia, John finally came to Tucson (after first thinking about Phoenix), and opened a storefront at Oracle & Orange Grove selling fireplaces, woodburning stoves, and spas. There was a nearby patio furniture store run by an elderly couple who were ready to sell, and John jumped at the chance. It was after that that they decided to build a new store on Costco Drive. His granddaughter Erica now runs the store. What a great story! Thanks, John.