The Rotary Club of Excelsior met on Tuesday, June 15th live at Red Sauce Rebellion and Virtually on Zoom for the farewell meeting of President Kate Wilinski. We had a full house. Karen Frazier had a display of free gifts for members that were left over from the Rotary Golf Swag Bags. Randy Schumacher was Greeter and Opening Marshal and took members through the pledge and Four-Way Test with his wonderful sense of humor and charm.
President Kate gave some brief announcements and then presented five Paul Harris Awards to Lou Graber, Scott Zerby, Jim Cada, Marianne Laurent and 
Dick Glover for the cumulative donations to the Rotary foundation.
Dick Glover for the cumulative donations to the Rotary foundation.Kate then called on Karen and Steve Frazier to give the Golf report. Karen who was Chair of the Golf Raffle Committee started the report by calling Jean Gray to the front to receive the 1st Place Raffle Prize of $1,000 and he also won one of the four $300 Gift Cards from Kowalski’s Market in Excelsior. Steve then reported on this year’s Rotary Golf Classic that was held on June 9th at Deer Run and After Party at Enki’s Brewery in Victoria. He explained our club took the lead in this year’s hurry-up fundraiser and the Rotary Golf Committee made up of members from both clubs only had six weeks to plan and pull the event together. Steve who acted Co-Chair lead then thanked the members from our club 
on the committee: Kate as Chair of Administration, Marketing, Website Design using Eventbright, and Registration of Golfers! Lou Graber as Treasurer, Scott Zerby for Website assistance, Karen Frazier for Chair of the Raffle, State Gambling documentation and Swag Bags of goodies for golfers. John Frem also worked on the raffle and his shop was a drop-off area for the event. Nick Ruehl Chaired the Sponsorship Committee raising $19,550 and all the signage for the sponsors.
on the committee: Kate as Chair of Administration, Marketing, Website Design using Eventbright, and Registration of Golfers! Lou Graber as Treasurer, Scott Zerby for Website assistance, Karen Frazier for Chair of the Raffle, State Gambling documentation and Swag Bags of goodies for golfers. John Frem also worked on the raffle and his shop was a drop-off area for the event. Nick Ruehl Chaired the Sponsorship Committee raising $19,550 and all the signage for the sponsors. Next Steve thanked the Event Sponsors from our Club. They were Nick Ruehl ($1.200 Birdie Sponsor), John Ferm and Don Draayer as $600 Premier Hole Sponsors. The $350 Hole Sponsors were: Louis Graber (did two), Paul Huber, Jean Gray, Randy Schumacher and John Hotvet. We thank all the sponsors for the support and generosity. Steve ended his report by predicting that the Rotary Golf Classic and Raffle would raise over $29,000 and that was not too bad considering the time limitations.
Our Program on June 15th was President Kate’s Final Meeting of her Presidency and she spoke about how unique the year had been both for her family and for our Club. She started by bringing her family up and introduced each of them – her husband Ben (I.T. and musician and plays with the Lonesome Lizards), Noah is 14 and going into 8th grade and likes the Trampoline & sports and would like to be an architect), James (going into 5th grade) is into 
sports, baseball, friends and ‘Field of Dreams.” His team went to Iowa and played in the same field as in the movie and his team won the tournament! Lucas the youngest is in 2nd grade and is into basketball, baseball, tennis and would like to be an Artist. Kate had pictures of her family doing all kinds of things during the pandemic. Kate has a caring and lovely family! Kate also mentions that she works for Opportunity Partners and had a picture with Melinda Jensen from TV and they raised $365,000 in their recent fundraiser this summer.
sports, baseball, friends and ‘Field of Dreams.” His team went to Iowa and played in the same field as in the movie and his team won the tournament! Lucas the youngest is in 2nd grade and is into basketball, baseball, tennis and would like to be an Artist. Kate had pictures of her family doing all kinds of things during the pandemic. Kate has a caring and lovely family! Kate also mentions that she works for Opportunity Partners and had a picture with Melinda Jensen from TV and they raised $365,000 in their recent fundraiser this summer. Kate remarked that even though we were not able to meet this year we still did lots of good things and had pictures of our speakers this year and shots of our service project of Warm Hands and Hearts with Resource West and teenage Christmas gifts for their Toy Chest Program. Kate ended her program by giving out “Rotarians of the Year Awards” and had a fun title for each member and a certificate. Finally she thanked everyone for their help and support to keep our Club going this year.
Our meeting concluded with a very generous collection of Happy Bucks and Randy Schumacher commented that all the money goes into our Education and Scholarship Fund. Most of the contributions were given in celebration of Kate’s year as President, our golf fundraiser and family updates. It was during this time that President Elect Lou Graber said that we will start our new Rotary Year on July 6th and one of his goals is to have club meetings three weeks of the month and a service project on the fourth week. That will mean a dues increase and probably won’t happen to start out in July but if members agree it will happen soon after. It was a great ending to Kate’s year as President and we thank her for doing such a great job under such difficult circumstances.