Our meeting began in the usual way with Bill McGrath leading us in the Pledge of Allegiance and God Bless America.  Our invocation was given by Kary Coleman.

Sergeant at Arms Report

John Hanna reported 47 of our 105 members in attendance today. Chuck Anderson brought Larry Blake, and Laura DeMichael brought Holly Schubert.

New Member Induction

Mark Parker presided over the induction of our newest member, Debbie Woods.  Bill Thorne sponsored her as a new member.  Welcome Debbie.

Announcements

Gwen brought some 6-month calendars if you want one.  The pictures are from a photographer in Rotary.

Laura DeMichael wanted to thank everyone for our help with providing toys for children in need this year.  They were able to give gifts for everyone who asked for them.  Thanks to all who contributed.

Mark Parker announced that the holiday party for children will be next week at the usual time.  Randy Bish will be here to do cartoons, and Laura DeMichael will be having the kids sing Christmas Carols for us.

Patty Lonsbary brought some flags of Rotary clubs during her 28,000 mile journey across the continent.  We have added them to our collection, and it was good to see Patty during the holiday.

Birthdays

Gwen Loughner gave our birthdays and anniversaries this week.  I unfortunately didn’t catch everyone with birthdays and anniversaries – really sorry.

Autobiography

Uncle Lou Incardona gave us his miniautobiography.  He’s been married for a year happily, but 31 in all.  He has three kids.  Lori, and Nicholas are all grown .  He graduated from Steel Valley High School and from IUP in human resource management and spent 0 days doing that.  Lou’s family has been his biggest reward.  He worked as a youth in his dad’s beer distributor.  After college he worked for his father in sales.  He also opened up a pizza shop, which was a cover for a pinball machine business.  Once his father sold his own distributor, he opened his own called Lou’s Booze.  He got bored, and he ended up working at a car dealership.  He became sales manager in 10 months, and he was that guy in the back room that the car salesman goes to talk to.  He came back to Greensburg when he was able to work in Ford at Greensburg.  Five years ago he leave the car business to join the mortgage business.  He then developed his company called Follow Your Customer.  It’s a low cost marketing tool to help someone run their business with a system that does the reminding about your customer.  He’s now working again in the car business at Kunkle’s Subaru in Delmont.  Thanks Lou.

Speaker

James Boggs introduced our speaker, Rich Sanders.  He is a nationally recognized Stooge expert and speaker.  He is the founder and president of the Restless Knights local Three Stooges fan club.  Rich was very good friends with Moe Howard and his family, as well as many who had worked with them.

Rich Sanders began working on this connection 40 years ago.  In 1958, Columbia first released the Stooges to TV.  The Stooges actually had their act jumpstarted in the Holiday House in Monroeville in 1959 that helped jumpstart them.  And they made at least one appearance at Kennywood Park.  Around the mid-1960’s, Rich bought a sound projector and started collecting the films of the Stooges.  He wanted to know more about them, and at that time there was nothing about the Stooges.  There was an address for Columbia Pictures on the box, and Columbia responded giving Moe Howard’s address.  He sent Moe a letter, and Rich received a 2 page letter from Moe along with autographed pictures.  Apparently Moe and Shemp performed in Jeannette when they were younger at Oakford Park.

In late 1971, Rich got permission to start a regional fan club.  The club has been 37 years old, and Rich shows film marathons of the Stooges locally.  And finally, Rich wrote a book in 2006 as “My Friend Mow…Memories of a Stoogeboomer.”  And while it started as a fan letter, Rich became a friend of Moe through his letters.  Now Rich is a friend of Moe’s son Paul, who got away from the show business.  The reason that the act was called Three Stooges is because they were with Ted Healy originally as his Stooges.  That’s where the name came from. 

Our meeting ended with Bill leading us in the Four Way Test.

Sergeant at Arms Report

John Hanna reported 59 of our 104 members in attendance today.  We had several guests.  Jeff Long brought Justin R. Meyer and Bill Kern brought Sister Bernice and Clara Lou Kern.

Rotary Foundation Moment

Bill Thorne gave our Foundation Moment for the day.  It is as simple as having a notebook, pencil, and glue.  In Pavas, a poor district in San Jose, Costa Rica a packet of educational materials means the difference between an education and working on the street.  Most public schools in Costa Rica are under funded and lack many basic supplies, so the Rohrmoser Rotary Club, Costa Rica developed a packet of teaching materials for students and partnered with the Vancouver Rotary Club, Canada to distribute 777 packets to children in five very poor elementary schools.  $100 buys 15 packets.  Without this project many students would not be able to continue their education and would be forced to drop out of school.

Students

Ed Meadows brought three students from Greensburg Salem.  Travis Fink, Ben Yasika, and Jeff Breakey joined us for lunch this week.

Announcements

I apologize if some announcements are not complete – there were so many so quickly that I barely kept up.

Bill McGrath announced that there are 10 cards that are being signed by our members for our friends in Greensburg, Kansas as well as some of our members and widows of our members.

Our club has had pictures taken, dating back to the 1970s.  The most recent photo we had was 12 years ago, and we will be having a club photo sometime earlier next year.

We have over 150 travel banners from all over the world.  Starting next week, we will have them posted and from now on we will have them on display.

Mark Parker announced that the children’s Christmas lunch will be on December 29.  There will be a children’s menu and entertainment.  Please sign up and let us know how many will be attending – there is no cost for the kids to come.  There will be a cartoon artist in attendance to make caricatures of the kids.

A great deal of thanks was given to Mark Parker for organizing the Christmas party.  Everyone had a great time.

Thanks to those who came to Ken Rutter’s fireside chat.  There were around 35 people in attendance, and he really enjoyed himself, and he gave a synopsis of his life in Rotary.  He has been a Rotarian for 60+ years.  Jeff Malloy will be trying to have an audio/video taken of the event, because it was absolutely wonderful.

Cathy Baumann announced that Dollar Bank is collecting gently used or new books for very young children.  If you have any to donate, please contact Cathy. 

Kary Coleman passed around a signup sheet for invocations for next year from January through June.  Please sign up if you can be in attendance.

Hannah Lierman is looking to go to Spain as part of the student exchange program.  We’re hoping to be able to exchange students there.  More information will be forthcoming.

James Boggs announced that there will be a play at the Saturday December 19^th at 8:00 PM.  There is an optional dinner, so sign up for either or both.  If there are at least 6 Rotarians in attendance, we will get a group discount.

Ray Charley gave an update on the Shop n Save benefit for the Food Bank.  They had approximately 330 certificates donated.

Sharon Smith announced that if anyone is interested in the Katz MBA program at UPG, there will be a final information session on Wednesday, 12/9/2009. 

The new slate of officers for the upcoming year (beginning in July, 2010) have been voted on and will be: President Mark Parker, President-Elect Bill Thorne, Vice President Kary Coleman, Secretary Bob Bloom, and Treasurer Mark Barnhart.

Paul Harris Award

Bill Kern presented the Paul Harris Fellow award to a non-member of our club who is a community leader and provides a high amount of service to our community.  We presented the Paul Harris Fellow award to Sister Bernice, vice president of St. Anne Home.  Thank you for all that you do in our community, Sister Bernice.

Word of the Week

Bill’s word of the week is furo.  It is a Japanese deep bathtub that you can sit in.

Speaker

James Boggs introduced our speaker, Renee Shaw.  She is the director of program development for The Challenge Program.  It is a 501c3 and they now have 130 schools in their program.  They gave away just under 1 million dollars last you.  They are a non-profit that partners with businesses.  They award 4 freshmen, 4 sophomores, 4 juniors, and 4 seniors money in four categories: if they are community involved, have high attendance, have high grades, and for the most improved.  If the students are offered a reward at the end of the year, it gives them a better incentive to act “like they are supposed to.”  Also, it provides something that the students can put on their resume.  Businesses embrace this idea because these are qualities that businesses are looking for in job candidates.  Her charge in the next five years is to be in every school district in the state. 

They are trying to now accumulate statistics as they move forward so they know that the program does work.  Currently, every school is signed on in Westmoreland County.  Only half of them currently have business sponsors.  Business sponsorships for a year are $5,000 - $3,000 goes directly back to the students, and the remainder goes to providing the other students at that school with information and other services.  It also provides a venue for communication between businesses and education.  Up to 2 businesses can share this sponsorship.  Greensburg Salem and Hempfield Area are currently looking for business sponsors; Greensburg Central Catholic has a sponsor.

Bill ended our meeting by leading us in the Four Way Test.