Message from the President
Downtown Rotarians:
This September we will celebrate the 102nd birthday of the founding of our Rotary Club. Our country and Rotary share some common tenets. The first two parts of the Rotary Four-way test, “Is it the Truth?” and “Is it Fair to all concerned?”, are embodied in the opening stanza from the Declaration of Independence that, “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among them are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
The Downtown Rotary Club has benefitted countless lives for over one hundred years. Our community service will continue, thanks to the Downtown Rotary Club’s Centennial Fund and its mission to raise funds to support worthy projects. We are thankful to Joel Dykstra and Ron Nelson for spearheading this effort and for Cindy Elifritz-Peterson for continuing this great work.
This upcoming Rotary year we will strive to present an exciting array of speakers for our Monday Club meetings. Thank you in advance to Tony Burke, Program Chair for the coming year, and thank you also to the upcoming monthly program chairs: Michelle Lavallee, Chrissy Meyer, Eric Erickson, Paul Amundson, Jason Herrboldt, Steve Sikorski, Kurt Loudenback, Mike Huber, and Jack Marsh. If you have any exciting ideas for speakers, please contact Tony or me. Your input is encouraged and appreciated.
This coming month, we will have the following presenters:
July 10: Hot Topics in the Health Department: Jill Franken, Public Health Director & Mary Michaels, Public Health Prevention Coordinator
July 17: Tom Simmons--Its How We Do Things Around Here: Reflections on Corporate Culture
July 24: Christoph Bausch, Chief Scientific Officer SAB Biotherapeutics--A Unified Strategy for Dev. Bio Tech in SD
July 31: Miles Beacom, Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, Jeff Scherschligt--SD Hall of Fame: A Panel Discussion
Again, I want to thank Dianne Metli and Holly Brunick for their years of service to our Club. They have left huge shoes to fill, but the mission of the Club must continue. We will welcome Amy Kusmak as our new Executive Director starting August 7. She will bring years of experience in strategic planning and implementing membership recruitment and engagement strategies, which we hope to employ in the months and years to come.
Thank you for being a Rotarian and for making a difference in our community and in our world!
Viva La Rotary!
President
Rotary Club of Downtown Sioux Falls