Month: June 2021

Minutes of Rotary Meeting
June 3, 2021
By Kathy Miller
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Claire McCarron, President of the Rotary Club of Mobile, at 12:00 p.m.
Invocation and Pledge: Kathy Miller gave the invocation and Tommy Blankenship led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Members’ Guests and Visiting Rotarians: Tommy Blankenship introduced Members’ guests and visiting Rotarians.
New Members: Kim Garrett introduced new member, Ira Bates, Jr., and Kathy Miller introduced new member, Harris Oppenheimer.
Program: Garrett Williamson introduced Joe Gottfried, retired Director of Athletics at the University of South Alabama, who spoke on the Mobile Sports Hall of Fame. He talked about the first members initiated into the Hall of Fame, including Hank Aaron, and gave an overview of other Mobile legends, both players and coaches. Of particular interest, he focused on several female members of the Hall of Fame, including Delores Brumfield White, an All American Girls Professional League Baseball player from 1947-1953, Becky Dickinson, who coached volleyball and basketball at McGill-Toolen and was one of the winningest volleyball coaches in Alabama school history with eleven state championship volleyball teams and three basketball state championships; Ann Schilling, who coaches volleyball at Bayside and has eighteen straight wins; and golfer, Susie Redman, who played on the LPGA tour for twenty years. He discussed the NCAA portal, NCAA rules regarding transfer and the impact of players not “playing through” college. In answering members’ questions, he acknowledged hearing a statistic that there were more active NFL players from the Mobile area than any other area other than the Miami-Dade area or Dallas.
Closing Remarks and Adjournment: Claire announced members’ birthdays and the program for next week. She adjourned the meeting at 1:00 p.m.
Kathy Miller
Contributing Editor
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Minutes of Rotary Meeting
May 27, 2021
By Kathy Miller
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Claire McCarron, President of the Rotary Club of Mobile, at 12:15 p.m.
Invocation and Pledge: Bonney Irwin gave the invocation and Tommy Blankenship led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Members’ Guests and Visiting Rotarians: Tommy Blankenship introduced Members’ guests and visiting Rotarians.
New Member: Tom McGehee introduced new member Alec Armbrecht.
Program: Bonney Irwin introduced member, Ariel Chavez, the owner of New Frontier Travel, LLC, who spoke on “Bolivia – From Butch Cassidy to The Last Jedi.” Ariel gave an interesting and informative talk on his native country, Bolivia. He showed a video illustrating some of the beautiful destinations in Bolivia and he described the topography of the country, which is known for mountains and mines. Approximately one-third of Bolivia consists of part of the Andes mountain range. Bolivia contains the largest salt flats in the world. There are hotels built out of salt and the salt flats inspired the scenery for one of the planets in the Star Wars movies.
Over 12 million people reside in Bolivia and approximately 60% of those are native to Bolivia. Ariel outlined the history and culture of Bolivia beginning with the Incas and the arrival of the Spanish in 1532. He described Bolivia’s primary cities, including Sucre and La Paz. He talked about the Andean women known as Cholitas who were given the right to vote in the revolution of 1952. He also described the history and importance of Quinoa to the country’s economy and arranged for Royal Quinoa, the most frequently exported, to be served at the Club’s lunch.
Claire thanked Ariel for speaking to the Club and presented him with a Speaker’s Certificate.
Closing Remarks and Adjournment: Claire announced members’ birthdays and the program for next week. She adjourned the meeting at 1:00 p.m.
Kathy Miller
Contributing Editor
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Minutes of the May 20, 2021 Meeting
The Rotary Club of Mobile
Call to Order: The meeting was called to order by Claire McCarron at 12:15 PM.
Earl Jackson offered the invocation. Tommy Blankenship led the Pledge of Allegiance and introduced the meeting guests.
ANNOUNCEMENTS
• Board meeting today
NEW MEMBERS
Bud McCrory, Director Mobile Area Water and Sewer introduced by Peyton Mattei
Program: Ashley Rich, District Attorney of Mobile County was introduced by Virginia Guy
Ashley Rich is the District Attorney for the 13th Judicial Circuit of the State of Alabama, which is the second largest Circuit in the State. She was elected in November of 2010 and has the honor of being the first female District Attorney of Mobile County. Prior to taking the over as the leader of the office she served as an assistant District Attorney for 15 years. She has tried over 155 jury trials and numerous defendants who are on Death Row in the State of Alabama.
Ashley has been awarded the Lagniappes “Nappie Award” for Mobile County’s Hardest Working Elected Official four times. She was also awarded the Mobile Baybears Community Service Award in 2013, Along with the Mobile Museum of Arts “Her- Story Award.” This year she was the recipient of The Watson Guy award at the 21st annual Drug Education Council, which recognizes the continuing tradition of helping others.
The mission statement for the DA’s office is to “Vigorously Prosecute Crime, Deliver Justice For All Victims, Supporting Law Enforcement in Seeking The Truth and Aggressively Work to Prevent Crime. Ms. Rich had a slide presentation which showed various statics around crimes, court cases and backlog in the court system. The Covid pandemic has had a tremendous effect on the courts as they significantly decreased the number of trials. Additionally, prospective jurors have been particularly hesitant to serve causing further trial delays. Ms. Rich estimates the backlog will take 3-4 years to clear.
President McCarron thanked Ms. Rich for her presentation and noted that, in her honor, a donation had been made by the club to “Reach Out and Read Alabama”
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 12:59 PM.
Rob Diehl