CURRENT NEWS:
The citizenship awards to the students from kindergarten through the fifth grade at Lowman Hill Elementary School were made by Past Governor Rod Obermeier on Wednesday, May 25. This is always a treat for the students. Rod was also present on May 26 when the sixth graders and the Teacher Of the Year” were honored.
Ted Heim has had surgery on his knee, after a fall, and now is in therapy at room 419 at St. Francis Hospital. Anne says Ted is getting along well, but will have a lengthy recovery. We wish him well.
Misty Kruger is carrying out the mission of Optimism by coaching T-Ball for 3and 4 year olds. Way to go, Misty.
Since we have been meeting at the Top Of The Tower, our luncheon has been $10.00 per person. However on July 1, the meal cost will be increased to $12.00. Also, because the Top Of The Tower will be closed the week of July 3 to 9, there will be no meeting on July 8. Be sure to mark your calendars.
On Friday, June 3, Judge Dave Bruns, a long-time Optimist, presently on the Board of Directors of OI International, and a former International Vice-President of Optimist International, will be sworn in by Governor Sam Brownback as the newest member of the Kansas Court of Appeals at 2:00 P.M. at the Supreme Court Building. All Optimists are invited to attend the ceremony.
The next District Convention will be held in Topeka during the 3rd week-end in August. Once again we have been asked to man the hospitality room. We will need volunteers and a sign up sheet will be available later on.
Latest word is that Bob Donaldson was to have been discharged from the hospital on May 21, after a stay of almost six weeks. We hope he is home and doing well.
Mark your calendars for our next Pancake Breakfast and Bake Sale on June 18. How many of you, my dear readers, noticed the error in the May 16th Newsletter?
Meeting of May20, 2011:
Herman Jones is the new Under Sheriff for Shawnee County and President Ron Brown was pleased to introduce him as our speaker. Herman first became interested in law enforcement while a student at Emporia State University. There he worked his way up from a dispatcher for the campus police to a student guard riding with the police officers to a police officer for the campus. Later he became a police officer for the City of Emporia. Along the way he became acquainted with a member of the Kansas Highway Patrol named Richard Barta.
In time he applied to and was accepted by the Highway Patrol and was stationed in Wichita. Eventually he was assigned as a trainer for applicants for the Patrol at Yoder, which is very near Hutchinson, and he held that position for eight years. After which he went back as a highway patrolman. In the year 2000 he was transferred to Topeka where he worked in the Agency’s office.
Very recently he was offered the position of Under Sheriff by Sheriff Richard Barta and Herman is learning and enjoying his new responsibilities.
Herman said that the Shawnee County Sheriff’s Department is now known as one of the best in the State of Kansas and has been accredited; something which is difficult to attain.
During his years of service, he said, law enforcement has changed and he expects more changes ahead. One priority now is better communication among all law enforcement agencies. Improved technology is needed and even now vendors are looking at proposals for such improvements. He added that some improvements have already been made to assist officers in cars in obtaining more information, more quickly.
At the present time burglaries are increasing in Shawnee County and the City of Topeka and Shawnee County have adopted a method of contacting citizens when hazardous situations occur. This system has been called “CodeRed” and all citizens are urged to register. This can be done by logging on to www.topeka.org and clicking on the CODERED Emergency Notification System. You can enter your name, primary phone number and street address, and even your e-mail address if you like. If you do not have internet access you can call 368-9590 M-F from 8:30 A.M. to 3:30 P.M.
We had one guest, Grace Lancaster, Art Lancaster’s daughter; jokes were told by Dean Landman and Clayton McMurray; Don Lee was the winner of the drawing and shared $20 with the OI Foundation; and was also of the winner of the badge number drawing; and Clayton McMurray took home the President’s Prize.
Meeting of May 27, 2011:
On April 23, 2010, Ken Moum of Topeka and Steve Durst from Palo Alto, California spoke to our Club about the “Ad Astra Kansas Initiative:. Today, Ken Moum spoke again about the Initiative and some of its background and plans for the future. At the same time he gave some interesting information about the Kansas State Motto. In 1861, when Kansas became a State, Senator John J. Ingalls proposed a design for the Great Seal of Kansas. On it he proposed what is now the State Motto: “Ad Astra Per Aspera’. According to Moum, Ingalls intention in choosing that motto was to indicate the difficulties in getting the Kansas Star added to the American Flag. At last, he said, the Kansas Star is on the flag of the United States of America.
In the 1970’s, Steve Durst, on his way from New York City to California, visited Kansas and became quite interested in Kansas and its State Motto. Finally, after a number of trips to Kansas, Durst proposed the creation of an initiative supporting Interstellar Research and Development. His plan was to promote Kansas as an information hub for space technology research and development. He established an office in Hutchinson, home of the Cosmosphere. The office is manned by Jeanette Steinert. She and Moum are the only two employees.
The Initiative will host a meeting in August of this year to acquaint educators with data to use in classrooms. Also there is a plan to establish a telescope observatory in Southwest Kansas to study the effects of cosmic rays.
Kansas, Moum pointed out, has a history of people involved in aeronautics and space. Including Clyde Tombaugh, astronomer, Steve Hawley, astronaut and Clyde Cessna, airplane manufacturer. At the present time, in an old shed in the east of Lawrence, data is being collected from two space probes, one of which is the Voyager.
For those who are interested, the Initiative has a website at: www. adastra/ks.org.
We were honored by a club visitation of five members of the Optimist Breakfast Club of Lawrence. They were quite interested in Moum’s remarks and will probably schedule him as a speaker for their Club. Rod Obermeier, substituting for President Ron Brown, noted that Marge Denton and Lloyd Montgomery had birthdays recently. Clayton McMurray told the joke of the day; Bob Lewis won the drawing and shared $10 with the O.I. Foundation; Paul Bicknell was not present to receive a prize of five gold dollars in a gold sack, and John Meyer won the President’s Prize.
In addition, Rod, catching up with prizes won but not awarded, presented five gold dollars in a gold sack to: past winners: Leland Denton, Jim Shannon and Clayton McMurray.