THE EASTSIDE ROTARY TRADITION
August 24, 2011
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EASTSIDE, AS USUAL Dr.Gerry Yurth has passed on his practice to a successor and now joins the ranks of the retired. He had a long and successful career and his patients will miss him. The storms may have spared your house, but Tammi Sheets’ husband was on the front page of the paper because his company’s roof was peeled off by Maryville’s wild winds. Paul Young had a knee replacement and is reported as undergoing some discomfort; we hope to see him back soon. Chad Higdon, Southside Rotary’s full time gadfly, sends a message about a bluegrass concert to combat hunger. (We hear so much from him. Is he running for District Governor?) Jane Graves is building up quite a guest list for September 28ths meeting. Every Eastsider should plan to attend that day. If you can’t find a guest to bring, you will be needed to help host the extras generated by BJ Burns. Shawn Drew need you to complete and return your membership profile information. Sjoert thinks some of the info details are irrelevant and he may be right. But even if you agree with him, just fill in what moves you—but send it in. Shawn needs the info for the website and also for the membership lists that he will distribute to help us keep track of each other without having to resort to the yellow pages. Jack Steury was Wednesday’s birthday celebrant, but the famous hat was missing. Even Jane could not find it on a second search. Jack always comes early and brings in the club materials from the closet, so naturally he was suspected of deep-sixing the hat to avoid the fun of being crowned with it. He got a serenade anyway. Then after the meeting was over, the editor was called back with the camera. The hat was found and Jack posed with Susie. See photo. Eastside’s lady members are always soigné and well dressed, but most were pretty mono-chrome this past Wednesday. So we have to send a salute and this week’s award to Jeannie Chavez ,who regularly demonstrates how to be chic and colorful at the same time. See photo.
PHOTO GLIMPSES Jack Steury with the birthday hat and Susie Campbell; Speaker Dan Yonker; Jeannie Chavez in her award winning colors.
COMING PROGRAMS August 31 will be a vocational program, with Richard Langholz and Ed Gorsky. September 7, Robin Hammond will speak about the Youth Alliance. September 14, local historian Joe Houts will revisit his family’s involvement in the Civil War. September 21, Ralph Boots reprises his experiences as a member of our district’s GSE team, which recently visited France. September 28.Jane Graves’ Special event for guests and prospective members. October 5, Sjoert Zuidhof presents an International Service program about a water well project.
TENDERLOIN TALES Dan Yonker, is a spokesman for the National Pork Board Speakers’ Bureau. He manages extensive pork raising operations in northwest Missouri for Cargill Corporation and is so devoted to his work that he takes his own time to hit the lecture circuit. Dan complimented Eastside as the most enthusiastic service club he has attended, and we must respond in kind: Dan was far and away the most dedicated and enthusiastic speaker we have heard in recent memory. He chronicled the travails of pork as it was eclipsed for a time by chicken by the low-fat diet enthusiasm of the 1970’s. Pork producers had re-engineer their pigs. Today’s porker carries less fat and more muscle, and produces a tenderloin that is as lean as a chicken breast. But to raise these animals and to compete with the price of chicken, pork producers had to develop new production facilities. Enclosed birthing and finishing buildings allow temperature controls and custom feeding tailored to the age and even to the gender of the pigs. As new pigs are weaned the facilities even allow the sows to be kept at a temperature best for them while just nearby the piglets live in the higher temperature that they need. Sanitation is a high priority. These facilities recycle manure as fertilizer injected into the soil of crop fields. Soil tests show what the land needs and the fertilizing is applied accordingly. Cargill farms have produced 200 bushels of corn per acre without other fertilizer. Odors are an ongoing problem and the industry is alert to new solutions being developed in university ag schools, notably Missouri University. The pork industry is a vital part of our economy, providing employment and export income, as well as food for our own plates.
Dan grew up on a Minnesota farm and has never lived in a town larger than his current home in Tarkio. In Missouri, he feels he’s “down south”. After hearing Dan, his listeners conclude he certainly has earned our “Southern hospitality”, even though we may not have considered Saint Joe as a part of Dixie. An outstanding program!
OPINION—ANNIVERSARY AGONIZING, BEGONE ! The tenth anniversary of the New York-Washington terror attacks, collectively known as 9-11, will soon be on our calendars. The event will also be on our front pages, radio waves, TV screens and emotional dinner plates. We won’t be able to avoid the relentless demands to agonize that will be shoved down our throats---all because it is the tenth anniversary. This defies logic. Why should we be sadder, more fearful, more patriotic or more anything on this tenth anniversary rather than on any other day which has followed the event? Why should we be forced to undergo it again? Much remains to be done and terrorism will be a fact of life for the indefinite future. So why the hullabaloo this September? Personally, I don’t want to relive it or to watch others wallowing in their own recollections. I’d prefer to move on, to hear about what we will to do restore our country in this, and other aspects.
This anniversary “celebration” really celebrates journalistic laziness, pure and simple. Rather than research current events and future prospects, it is so much easier for the media to dig into the files and re-run ten-year old materials. Then they will pad these out with current interviews of people telling how they felt then. (The local press regularly does this with one-year anniversaries of forgotten crimes and catastrophes.). It’s as if your doctor were to summon you in for an exam just to watch you twinge as he pokes your wounds and scars from a ten-year old operation, rather than to give you the current exam and prognosis that you really need.
So, fie on this tenth anniversary concept. Remember what you need and want to remember, whenever you want to remember it. Let the balm of time heal the pains of the past that you prefer to forget. Concentrate on today and tomorrow. –B.R.
The Tradition is the weekly news bulletin of The Rotary Club of Saint Joseph, East. Eastside meets every Wednesday at noon, at the Albrecht Gallery, St.Joseph, Missouri. Officers for the 2011-2012 Rotary year are: Susan Campbell, President; Heather Shearin, President-elect; Shawn Drew, Past President; Tom Roetto, Vice-President; Dave Richmond, Treasurer; Jeanne Chavez, Secretary; Director, Club Service: Amy Ryan; Director, Community Service, Mark Trullson; Director, Vocational Service, Lynette Saxton; Director, International Service, Sjoert Zuidhof;
Membership Chairman, Jane Graves; Rotary Foundation Chairman, Jim Fitzgerald; Public Relations Chairman Alan VanZant; Senior Advisors: Ron Auxier, Ken Hamlin and Roger Parson.