May 20, 2013, Club Bulletin, #465
Program for May 20, 2013: Living With Floods at the University of Iowa by Chuck Swanson
Invocation: Keith Porter
Rotary Guests: Jeff Arp from the Des Moines Rotary Club
Rotary News: President Kelly Garvin informed the club that we will be moving from our current location in the very near future. Calvary Church has decided that they do not want a weekly commitment of their room and have asked us to find another location. If you have suggestions please let a board member know.
We will hold a new member meeting on Friday, May 17, 2013 at Sunnybrook Assisted Living from 11:30 until 1:00 pm. Kelly announced that we will have 3 new members joining next week; Jamie Hopkins, Katy Morgan and Manasi Nadkarni.
Rotary Happy News: Doug Schnoebelen was happy that the STEM Festival drew over 500 persons and included over 30 math and science demonstrations. Shelley Sides is proud of her daughter achieving her white coat at the Dental College in Iowa City. Mike Ruby updated us on the shoe project emphasizing the 3731 pairs of shoes were collected of which 103 came from our club!! Janet Morrow reminded us of the coming boat show That Was Then This is Now (June 7-9) and the New Orleans Preservation Hall event on the Riverfront on the evening of June 11, 2013. Mary Odell encouraged all to put a $1 on the table in honor of our mother, she enjoyed seeing her MOM yesterday! Marilyn Smith was proud of Norm and the recognition he received at the Rotary Convention for being in charge of our Youth Exchange Committee for a LOOOOOOng time!! He did a wonderful job and we are proud of this accomplishment!!
Program: Bob Albee introduced the program on Rachel Carson and Shirley Briggs by Karen Mason and Sara Sheib. Both are from the Iowa Women's Archives Museum at the University of Iowa. The archives houses letters, diaries, photographs and papers of women from Iowa. This includes persons from Muscatine such as Aldeen Davis and Joni Axel. Rachel Carson was very interested in the natural world. She was born at the turn of the 20th Century. She wrote several outstanding books that explored the natural world and our misuse of it. Books include The Sea Around Us, The Edge of the Sea and Silent Spring. Silent Spring focused on the Chemical and Ag industries overuse of chemical pesticides and was written in 1962. The book was outspoken at the time but substantiated by the Kennedy Commission's findings in 1963. Her work pointed out that the Bald Eagle was disappearing do to the use of DDT. These(Rachel and Shirley) women were some of the first environmental activists who helped craft various pieces of legislation protecting our natural environment. Shirley Briggs studied with Grant Wood. She published information about specific bird populations and wrote in 1992 the Basic Guide to Pesticides. Karen and Sara spoke about the collections at the Iowa Women's Archives mentioning that it is digitized and online for use.