President MARK IRVIN called the meeting to order at 12 noon from the Tucson Convention Center. The opening of the meeting featured the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag lead by BRITTANY BATTLE from Social Venture Partners and the rendition of “My Country ‘Tis of Thee”. A Moment of Silence was held for Ukraine followed by a heartwarming Inspiration given by KURTIS DAWSON, YMCA, featuring a video about leaders that set-up solely for a positive outcome, not for themselves.
The lunch featured a delicious swordfish, they tell me and some healthy vegetables. As always, the TCC banquet staff were attentive to the hungry Rotarians.
President Mark kicked off the formal part of the meeting by not introducing KHRIS DODGE who was not available, so DAN KALM stepped in, with no music and thanked all of the enthusiastic audience attending the meeting and introduced our honored guests to the luncheon.
Today’s program was introduced by Matt Russell courtesy of RICK ROSE Film Creations. Jim Storey, a native Tucsonan, representing “Empower Coalition” spoke enthusiastically about his group’s effort to be part of Tucson and help those in need featuring unique leaders throughout the community, that certainly follows the “Rotary Four Way Test”. Jim signed the Make Way For Book entitled appropriately, “The Giving Bag.”Not to be anti-climactic but today’s Birthday featured Bob Logan, who has never taken advantage of his Birthday just to secure the opportunity to grab the podium mic. Making an exception for today, BOB clearly left us with a message, that unfortunately cannot be shared in this written format. However, it can be seen on the Rotary’s YouTube Channel to enjoy his reiteration of how life would be if we started with death, rather than birth. Other birthdays today included MATT BLAIR, Cirrus Visual Communications and MONTE CLAUSEN, US Dept of Justice. Happy Birthday guys!!
Up next was the PAUL HARRIS PRESENTATION presented by Char Harris - Presentation to: JOE DANISZEWSKI, Michael Daniszewski (Joe’s Son).
Mark Irvin introduced Rotary Club of Tucson’s newest member DEBBIE SHEPPARD from Banner Health Foundation. Welcome to the club DEBBIE!Maintaining our meetings new tradition, BOB LOGAN, 2019-2020, was welcomed to the Big Screen with an interview by historian BOB SHAFF, honoring Mr. LOGAN in a very timely history moment of his tenure as President of Rotary Club of Tucson during perhaps the most challenging time of any recent President. BOB led the club through the COVID-19 Pandemic with honor, and a mission to maintain Rotary’s commitment to the community through very innovative ways to communicate with the membership. This was done through a series of weekly meetings held on our new YouTube streaming channel where members, guest speakers and surprises along the way appeared in a weekly streaming broadcast all done at Film Creations courtesy of Rick Rose. The end result, the club continued serving the community and survived to grow even stronger. Thank you, BOB LOGAN for your leadership, compassion, creativity and just being BOB.
The rest of the meeting was followed by a drawing which didn’t produce a big winner, Blue Badge presentation to NANCY STOCKTON, reminder about the Change of Administration event on Saturday and of course the Fly-Fishing Fund update by President MARK IRVIN. MARK'S last meeting will be on June 22 with some surprises so be sure to attend as we welcome our new Rotary President, BRUCE JACOBS, who has been patiently outspoken during MARK’S tenure. His first official meeting will by on July 13, 2022.
Meeting was adjourned with a toast mentioning how wonderful it was to support JTED throughout the year. And left us with a quote from Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.”
