In 1989, Alan Day created a unique industry. He took 1500 excess, unadoptable government-owned wild horses and put them on his 35,000-acre ranch in the Sand Hills of South Dakota. There, he managed, cared for and even trained them to follow a cowboy on horseback. Alan had the horses - and many adventures with them - for four years. Today, he advocates establishing private sanctuaries as a solution to the huge challenges facing the Bureau of Land Management's Wild Horse Program.

 

 

If it’s possible to say that someone can be born a cowboy, then Alan Day was born one. He was part of the third generation to grow up on the 20,000-acre Lazy B cattle ranch that straddled the high deserts of southern Arizona and New Mexico. The ranching and cowboy lifestyle appealed to him so much that after graduating from the University of Arizona, he returned to manage the Lazy B for the next 40 years. During his career, he received numerous awards for his dedicated stewardship of the land.  Alan and his sister, Sandra Day O’Connor, tell the story of the Day family and of growing up on the harsh yet beautiful ranch in their co-authored New York Times bestselling memoir, Lazy B. Alan continues his ranching and cowboying adventures in his new book, The Horse Lover: A Cowboy’s Quest to Save the Wild Mustangs, the story of how he created the first government-sponsored sanctuary for unadoptable wild mustangs and trained and cared for 1500 wild horses. Among other awards, the book has received the New Mexico – Arizona Book Award, the Arizona Author’s Award, was named a Southwest Book of the Year, and is hailed by Booklist as “an instant classic.”

Today was the Big Day we’ve all been waiting for! OK, maybe I’m overstating a little, but I’ve been awaiting this day since October. That is, the day we announce the results of the 2015 Tucson Classics Car Show, our signature event for the local community, and award checks to the five beneficiaries of the show. So I’ll recap the results as announced by BILL MOORE.

 

If you all remember, we had pretty significant rain during the early morning hours before the show. And while weather was perfect all day, the morning rain did impact participation at the show. Of the 425 cars registered, we had 288 actually participate during the day. Fortunately we sell most of the tickets in advance for the show, so ticket sales were actually up in 2015 with 31,106 tickets sold. That compares to 31,103 sold for the 2014 show. This gave ROGER HARWELL an opportunity to go over last year’s show chair PAT ZUMBUSCH, but as ROGER fairly pointed out, PAT was ticket sales chairman this year, so gloating would be a little disingenuous! BTW, the Rogue team won the ticket sales and will receive a steak dinner at a future RCOT meeting.

 

In terms of cash results, there were many gifts and in-kind donations mentioned by BILL. But the bottom line, the Car Show raised total net revenue of ~ $126,000! In addition, a special $6,000 donation for Reading Seed was provided. The total amount to be given to charities: $132,000!! That brings our 9-year total to $882,000 raised for charities to assist our local community. Congratulations to all RCOT members who have helped make this a very successful and special event here in Tucson.

 

In closing, I paraphrase ROGER. “Niner was indeed finer… We could have been singing in the rain, but the sun came out in the morning!”

 

 Remember, no meeting next week, so see you all in two weeks!

 

 

It’s easy to understand how Rotarians can be of great value to a Rotary club via their hours to work on projects or their financial contributions. If you have a scarcity of both, you aren’t left out. There are other ways to be engaged. One possibility is to mine your connections to those who do have time and money.

 

Is your ability to marshal 30 volunteers for a few hours meaningful? It sure can be to our Tucson Classics Car Show, or to the Triangle Y Camp, or to the Boy Scouts Mt Lemmon compound, or to the Salvation Army. There are times our club can make use of many hands, beyond what even our members can provide. Your three hours spent organizing the labor for a job are leveraged into 30 or 40 or 100 hours toward finishing the task. Being able to repeatedly deliver that labor pool makes you a valuable resource in the work Rotary undertakes. Remember that needed volunteer manpower we can’t obtain will often have to be paid for – if you secure labor, you may be saving valuable cash the club can put to use elsewhere. In-kind can replace (i.e. conserve) dollars.

 

Don’t have a bank account with sufficient funds to single-handedly bankroll a Rotary service program? Most members don’t. But do you have influence with people who do have substantial means? That can be a very significant way to make your membership productive in Rotary. Those with deep pockets have no end to the number of causes they can support…which ones they will support can sometimes depend upon the advice of those they socialize with and those whose advice they respect. Members who have an ability to succeed in raising significant funds from outside the club definitely fill an important role.

 

Up to now, we have reviewed three ways to engage as a member: volunteer your time; donate your money; or, secure the time/contributions of outsiders. If none of those are capabilities you can readily bring to Rotary, there are yet more opportunities. In the end, you need to pick the way or ways you are able to be engaged. (Next time, giving via your unique talent or skill.)