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2008 Auction
Catalog Hot Off The Presses
Click here to view or
download a copy: Catalog 2008.pdf
The Auction is November 14th at 5:30 p.m.
Jefferson Rotary
announces the 2008 Professional of the Year
As part of the festivities included in its annual Celebration Dinner,
the Jefferson Rotary Club has honored each year’s recipient of its
Professional of the Year award since 2004. However, the timeline for
presenting this year’s award to its regular club meeting on June 23,
and the reason for the change related directly to the appropriateness
of the award. The award was established to recognize “a person in our
community who through devotion and dedication to their profession has
helped make Jefferson a nicer place to live.” With these criteria and
in line with this year’s international Rotary theme of “Rotary
Shares,” the club believes that this year’s recipient exemplifies this
virtue in all facets of his life.
To announce the winner, President Ruth Freeman turned over the floor
to Rotarian Rick Morain who commented, “This year’s recipient has
been the Voice of Greene County sports for 30 years, and the
chronicler of that subject in the local paper for the last 14. His
encyclopedic knowledge of Jefferson, Jefferson-Scranton, and
Jefferson-Scranton/Paton Churdan athletes and teams is amazing, as
well as his detailed recollection of college and professional
athletics.” Rick also noted, “We’d need a high-speed
calculator to compute the number of youth sports games he has
attended, reported, announced, or handled play-by-play, on radio,
cable, or in the paper. When he discovers the occasional
off-night—and there aren’t many of those—he climbs into Old Blue, his
faithful recliner, and watches a game on TV.”
Rick continued to list all of the organizations and events in the
community that the recipient has been part of as well as all the
things he does to help keep the Jefferson Rotary Club the fun
organization that it is. The recipient has been a past president of
the Jefferson Chamber of Commerce, past chair of the entire Bell Tower
Festival and the Greene County Cancer Society chapter along with
serving on the Jefferson Community Chest Board. The recipient has
also been awarded the Iowa Broadcaster’s Association’s highest award
at the 1996 Iowa Boy’s State Basketball Tournament.
It was perhaps the following comments that Rick attributed to longtime
JSPC Football Coach Bill Kibby that best sum up why this year’s
recipient is so deserving, “He’s outstanding to work with. He’s
very positive and easy to get along with, even in the bad years. In
addition to his sports reporting, he also does the public address
announcing for our freshman and sophomore games, and announces the
track meets. We can always depend on him. He’s very deserving of
this award. I don’t know how he does all the stuff he does. He must
have a very understanding wife, since he’s on the road so much. Talk
about coaches putting in long hours! He’s very highly thought of by
the other schools we play, and the other schools in the county. He
could have gone big time if he wanted. We’re glad he didn’t!”
The award
ceremony had to be changed because a Jefferson-Scranton softball game
on the evening of the Celebration Dinner was scheduled, and the
recipient was committed to providing the play-by-play announcing for
the videotaping of the game for replay on the local cable access
station. That’s just so typical of the recipient’s dedication to his
profession that has benefited so many folks in Jefferson and the
surrounding communities for many years.
The
Jefferson Rotary Club is extremely proud to name Doug Rieder as the
2008 Professional of the Year, and it congratulates Doug, his family,
and his many friends for helping make Jefferson a better place to live
for all of us.
Doug is
pictured above receiving his award from President Ruth Freeman.
Jefferson
Rotary Club Practices “Rotary Shares” At The Bell Tower Festival
The City of Jefferson was once again host to thousands of people as it
played host to the 29th Annual Bell Tower Festival from
June 13 through June 15, 2008. The Jefferson Rotary Club took the
opportunity to practice the 2007-2008 Rotary year theme as it “Shared”
in helping to make this wonderful community event another overwhelming
success.
The highlight of each year’s festival is, of course, the parade which
draws hundreds of entries and thousands of spectators along the
route. The Jefferson Rotary Club has been in charge of organizing and
staging the parade for many years, and this year’s chairman, Don
Orris, and his hard working fellow Rotarians made the parade another
great spectacle.
The parade featured a little something for everyone from dozens of
antique tractors and horses to fire trucks and classic cars. The
Jefferson-Scranton High School and Middle School bands combined into a
“super-sized” band to entertain onlookers as they marched along. A
large number of floats made the parade very interesting for everyone,
and, of course, the Isiserettes Drill & Drum Corps made its annual
appearance to pump up the crowd with its exciting routines.
As always, the club sponsored a contest for the best decorated floats
with winners chosen in two divisions, Commercial and Non-Commercial.
With the large number of outstanding floats this year, the judges
definitely had a difficult job to pick the winners. With a very
entertaining idea, the Commercial Division winner was the Genesis
Development entry. In the Non-Commercial Division, this year’s
winner was once again the entry from the Jefferson Public Library,
thus returning to its winning ways after a one year absence from the
winner’s circle with another beautifully decorated and innovative
float. In addition to these two awards, the Bell Tower Festival
Organizing Committee presented an award for the Best Use of the
Festival Theme with that award also going to Genesis Development.
The Jefferson Rotary Club thanks everyone who helped make the parade
and the entire Bell Tower Festival another outstanding event this
year.
Senator Charles
Grassley Addresses The Club
At its regular weekly meeting on February 18, 2008, the Jefferson
Rotary Club was honored to welcome Iowa’s Senior
United States Senator Charles Grassley as its guest speaker.
President Ruth
 Freeman
conducted the regular business meeting, and then turned the floor over
to Rotarian Rick Morain, who had the honor of introducing Senator
Grassley. Following some initial remarks, the Senator spent
nearly 45 minutes answering questions from the Rotarians and guests in
attendance.
Topics included the Farm bill, Biofuels, the Economic Stimulus
Package, the Savings Percentage Fall, the Mortgage Crisis, and the
Economy’s Dependence on China, particularly for manufactured goods.
The Senator, long known for his straightforward answers, provided his
insight on these issues as well as sharing his thoughts on the current
working relationships in the Senate. He was particularly proud
of the fact that the Bipartisan approach he led as Chair of the
Finance Committee has been maintained by his Democratic counterpart
since the transition in leadership in 2006. Overall, though, he
noted that both the Senate and the House have become much more
partisan than when he first began his service in Congress serving
three terms in the House and now in his fifth term in the Senate.
While he is unsure how to reverse this trend, he
believes that in the long term best interests of the country,
bipartisan work needs to be at the core of the Congressional agenda.
Senator Grassley joined a long list of distinguished speakers who have
addressed the Jefferson Rotary Club. The list includes Governors, Lt.
Governors, Legislators, Iowa Department Heads, Iowa Supreme Court
Justices, leading businessman, professional athletes, teachers, and
students to name just a few. The club sincerely thanks Senator
Grassley for taking the time from his busy schedule to address them,
and also thanks him for his long and faithful service to the State of
Iowa and its people.
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