The History of Excelsior Rotary

The Excelsior Rotary Club
The Excelsior Rotary Board of Directors met on Tuesday, August 3rd and discussed completed the following actions:
  1. July Minutes were approved from Sec. Maryanne Laurent.
  2. Randy Schumacher will become Treasurer in the 2nf Quarter.
  3. The Club will explore a Rotary Community Grant for the Playground project at MCEC and also the Excelsior Commons renovations.
  4. The Club Website will be updated to feature a revolving slide show of current club activities and add to it as the year goes by.
  5. Six of the scholarship students have not yet requested their MAD funds for the fall sessions.
  6. The Golf Fundraiser results are in and both clubs will receive $12,971.30.
  7. The Morning Club will not partner on the Golf Classic next year and our club is exploring partnering with another club(s) in our new Area 6.  Deer Run has suggested May 8th.
  8. Excelsior Rotary Shirts are on-hold until after Tour deTonka.
  9. The Board approved a grant for $2,000 for Way To Grow and will present the check to Kim Bowman at the August 17th Meeting.
  10. The Club will set-up billings using Club Runner.
  11. The Board chose not to have a booth/table at Art on the Lake.
  12. We need one additional member for the Excelsior Rotary Foundation Board of Directors.
  13. Happy Hour at Excelsior Brew at 5PM on August 24th.
 
Our Program on August 3rd was President Lou Graber on ‘The History of Excelsior Rotary Club – Past, Present and Future.’  Gary Thompson was the Meeter-Greeter and after the Pledge he had everyone turn away from the screen and recite the 4 Way Test and we all did it!  Gary continued and made remarks about the Olympics from its beginnings in 75 B.C. 
 
President Lou then wished Happy Birthdays to Jean Gray, Joe Froehling, Tad Shaw, Dick Glover and Karen Frazier.  The Carrot Birthday Cake that was served to members came from Karen’s Sister – Pat Lindstrom as she done in previous years.  Michelle Seets and Ron Hughes have Anniversaries and Randy Schumacher has been a Rotarian for 10 years.  President Lou noted that we need a Director for the Excelsior Rotary Foundation Board and asked Gary Thompson to consider it.  President Lou then noted that the Golf Fundraiser made a net profit of $25,942.12 so each club received $12,971.30.  President Lou gave recognition to Steve and Karen Frazier, Nick Ruehl and Kate Wilinski for their work on the Golf Classic.  Steve Frazier then showed a Power Point of the Happy Hour Party at John and Sandy Hotvet’s on July 17th with comments from John Hotvet.
 
President Lou then talked about the History of the Excelsior Rotary Club starting back to charter on June 30, 1949.  He noted that our club # is 2113 and we now have 27 members and are part of District 5950, Area 6.  Our District Governor is Marianna Khauv and Assistant Governor (#6) is Greg Anderson.  He went on to say the financially our club is doing well with $170,000 in investments of which $75,000 from the corpus of Lee Paris.  Our Club account currently has $32,404.77.
 
President Lou then gave a litany of deceased, former members and honorary members with commentary from club members.  We have 15 deceased members and commented on John Ahern, Keith Engen, Glenn Froberg, Bob Humphrey, John Marty, Lee Webster, and Bob Williams who had 54 years of perfect attendance.  He listed the former members and noted that he would like to get back into the club as well as those that we have given special recognition to as Honorary Members including Dean Freisen, Amy Mook, Nina Stark, Molly Swenson, Jenny Janson, Hugh Gilmore and Ron Kaufman.
 
As for the Future of our club he said that we are going to invest in education and wellbeing of children through STRIVE, Make A Difference, Way To Grow (a $2000 Grant to be presented on August 17th), Hospitality House, and MCEC.  Lou pointed out that our members are now mostly over 70 and will be doing less physical service projects but put our efforts towards more mentoring activities like Helping Hands, ICA, and Reach Out and Read.