Rotary Club of Marana
President Jo M Holt led us in The Pledge as the clock struck 8am. Her attempt to quickly begin reminiscing about her past year as club president wa thwarted by Member Maeve Johnson's enquiry "Isn't this a song month?" Without waiting for an answer Maeve pressed "Let's sing "Its a Grand Old Flag" I just love that song. And so we did. Some of our younger members (those under 70) may not know the background of this George M Cohen song written in 1906.
The original lyric for this perennial George M. Cohan favorite came, as Cohan later explained, from an encounter he had with a Civil War veteran who fought at Gettysburg. The two men found themselves next to each other and Cohan noticed the vet held a carefully folded but ragged old flag. The man reportedly then turned to Cohan and said, "She's a grand old rag." Cohan thought it was a great line and originally named his tune "You're a Grand Old Rag." So many groups and individuals objected to calling the flag a "rag," however, that he "gave 'em what they wanted" and switched words, renaming the song "You're a Grand Old Flag".[1]
— Library of Congress
If you have three minutes check this out-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxyt1Vt5ejY
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Back to President Jo's reflections on the past year. The year was filled with the planting of thousands if not tens of thousands of trees by Rotarians spurred by our RI President. Hundreds were planted in our own Marana Veterans cemetery. Tour De Tucson aide station was again our big November event. Rpotarians riding in this event have raised over FORTY-FIVE MILLION DOLLARS for the fight against polio over the past few years. Our club has played a not so small part. Our own Tour de Cookie has also raised thousands of dollars for our charitable works. Our books for preschool kids project, in spite of a few twist and turns start to finish, provided over 6,000 books to needy families seeking services through the Women, Infants and Children program at The Marana Healthcare facility. A few hundred hours of hands on work were spent assisting the Food Bank at the Ortiz Clinic in Picture Rocks, AZ.
Gifts were provided by Jo to her Board Members and she especially singled out Denise West, while not a member of the board, for her participation in so many of the years events.
Then Maeve went on a roll. I missed 95% of what the hell was going on. However, I did learn a new word. "Jamoke". I think Randy is one, but as I said, I am not sure I heard everything correctly. There is a lot of stuff that goes on over in that corner of the room each week that is out of order and needs to be reigned in. I think our Sergeant of Arms needs to get involved. This kind of fun should be prohibited.
Lynne, following up to last weeks hijinks, decided to read her joke of the week to us. While not as hilarious as last week, the gist of the humor was, if you are looking for a priest or a lawyer there may be better places than St Pete's backyard.
We finally got around to swearing in Tony Hunter as our new president effective 7/1/2018 and he in turn swore in and pinned the following members:
Richie Benner-President Elect
John Dooling-Secretary
Lynne Himmer-Treasurer
Harold Burtzloff-Member at Large
Bob Bishop-Member at Short (his joke, not mine)
Tony addressed the club and notedly told us that Rotary International, the Zone, The District and The Club all run on their members. The thought was taken from this months Rotarian Magazine's article by the new RI President. After providing the backstory to the origin of the name Marana Tony encouraged us to take risks and "To Be The Inspiration".
We look forward to Tony's year at the helm.
