Luke McNeese District Director, Boy Scouts Mid-America Council
Topic: Serving the Full Family through Scouting
The Boy Scouts of America, founded in 1910, has primarily served young men through the Cub Scout and Boy Scout program. During 2018 and 2019 the programs are being transitioned to serve both young men and women through the Character and Leadership Development programs of the Boy Scouts of America. Luke will give a brief overview of the Scouting program, then cover the transition and future of the Scouting program.
Bio: Luke McNeese grew up in Greeneville, TN in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, and has a Computer Science degree from Tennessee Technological University in 2010. Luke started as a District Executive for the Chippewa Valley Council headquartered in Eau Claire, WI in April, 2011. Luke met his wife Shelby at professional Scouting training in Irving, TX and were married in July of 2014. In 2015, Luke was promoted to District Director of the Mid-America Council, he provides leadership to the Scouting program for 5,000 youth west of 72nd Street in Omaha. Luke and his wife Shelby and one son Micah, and a second child arriving in November. He is a Paul Harris Fellow.
Last week was our Annual Skinner Skyhawk Awards. President Nuzhat Mahmood presided the meeting. Gail Veitzer gave the Invocation. Pat Knowles and Bob Lovgren served as greeters, while Gretchen Radler was Sgt. at Arms. Ric Miller was Cashier. Dick Lerner was Chair of the Day. Dick introduced our speaker, Tarina Cox-Jones, Principal at Skinner Magnet Center. Tarina gave a report on several Rotary initiatives and projects at Skinner Magnet Center and how these projects are positively impacting the students. Tarina received a rousing applause when she expressed interest in joining Omaha West Rotary. Our Skinner Skyhawk awardees were: Sanii Huston Wells and Jonathan Orsi. Both awardees gave impressive speeches and received standing ovation from Rotarians and guests.
Tarina Cox-Jones speaking to Omaha West Rotarians
Jonathan Orsi and his family, with Tarina Cox-Jones, Bobbie Martinie, Dick Lerner and Matt McKeever
Sanii Huston Wells and her family, with Tarina Cox-Jones, Bobbie Martinie, Dick Lerner and Matt McKeever
Omaha West Rotary Club Secretary Report for May 11, 2018.
We had one Guest Rotarian this week: Phil Schreier from Northwest Rotary. Guests of Rotarians and their hosts included Starla Waite introduced by Yolanda Hoffman and Micah Yost, a guest of Laura Thomas. LaShonna Dorsey introduced her guest, Balkissa Mahamane. Dr. Mark Manhart gave us a very long introduction about his son, Mark Manhart, who was actually about to inducted as our club's newest member. Gail Weitzer also introduced her husband, Irv Weitzer, who visited us for what has to be a record nine consecutive club meetings.
We recognized Red Badge Members in the club membership.
Again, a large number of Rotarians had good news. Rotarians with good news included (but were not limited to) Russ Iwan, Martie Cordero, Gretchen Radler, Bob Lovgren, Bruce Cramer, Matt McKeever and Vaughn Wiebusch.
Susan Thomas was fined for a lengthy article and color photographs about her Manhattan and Midtown Crossing apartments in the most recent issue of Inspired Living Magazine. Brett Wawers was fined for an article about Lamp Rynearson moving up in the national rankings of engineering firms. Brett has been fined a great number of times this year. Matt reminded him that if he and his company weren’t so awesome, he wouldn’t get fined so often. Matt was fined for articles for the comments by Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger about Bitcoin as well as one of the articles about Bitcoin submitted by Carol Gendler last week.
Matt told a Bill Cutler "mostly true story" about little Johnny cheating off of Mary, the girl sitting next to him. It became obvious Johnny was cheating when Mary wrote for one of her test answers, "I don't know," and little Johnny wrote, "I don't know, either." President Nuzhat Mahmood commented that the reaction from the club assembly to Matt’s story were groans, but friendly ones.
Last week, Dr. Mark Manhart introduced our newest member Mark Christopher Manhart. Mark is the owner of Manhart Designs LLC. His principal business activity is remodeling and designing. Mark also teaches furniture building. Please introduce yourself and welcome Mark when you see him at our Friday meeting.
L to R: Dr. Mark Manhart, Mark Christopher Manhart, and Nuzhat Mahmood
Recently, Deb Neary introduced our newest member Shonna Dorsey. Shonna is the Vice President of Sales and Marketing for AIM Institute. She serves on several boards/community councils. She is an Omaha Girls Rock Board Member, a Defy Ventures Nebraska Board Member, Business Ethics Alliance Trustee, Fund for Omaha Committee Member, Heartland 2050 Metropolitan Area Planning Agency Executive Committee Member, the Chairperson of the Heartland Workforce Solutions Youth Council, and a Nebraska Department of Education's Department of Postsecondary Career Schools Community Council Member. In 2018, Shonna was selected by Governor Pete Ricketts to join the Nebraska Information Technology Council. Please be sure to welcome Shonna when you see her at our Friday meeting.
Shonna Dorsey
L to R: Deb Neary, Shonna Dorsey, and Nuzhat Mahmood
We are announcing our New Member proposals, as follows:
Starla Waite is Director-Consultant at Mary Kay Cosmetics. Her classification is Cosmetics Distribution. Her proposer is Yolanda Hoffman.
Starla is a Registered Nurse who opted for early retirement after serving for 34 years. The latter part of her nursing career was spent with the Nursing management team at Children's Hospital. Starla has experience in fundraising drawn from her work raising money for the American Health Association.
Dan Lassek is Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch. His classification is Wealth Management. His proposer is Martie Cordaro.
Dan is eager to take an active membership in Rotary. He is very connected in the community as shown by his involvement in several non-profit organizations such as the Children's Hospital Foundation, the Omaha Performing Arts, and the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce.
Any objections to these proposals must be in writing to the Board of Directors at boardofdirectors@omahawestrotary.org by May 19th.
The Rotaract Club based at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, has embarked on a wheelchair project. The Rotaractors are raising money to send 120 wheelchairs to Ivory Coast and support the momentum of polio eradication in that country. Please make your gift to the Rotaract Wheelchair Project, Rotary Club of Lincoln 14 Foundation, PO Box 83843, Lincoln, NE 68501. Details about this project can be found here.
Spread the News! It's a great time to join Omaha West Rotary!
Please spread the news, the fee for joining West Omaha Rotary has been discounted from $540 ($340 plus $200 application fee) to $113 from now till June 30th. Because of the generous “new member” contributions from Nizar Mamdani, Dwayne Brown and John Morey, the application fee has been waived and the membership fee has been supplemented for all new members. This is a great opportunity to encourage prospects to test out our club and join at a reduced rate. For more information please reach out to Jill Slupe at Jslupe@verdemartin.com or 917-416-7498.
May Birthdays Rich Secor 04 Don Klein 05 C. Latta 08 Kent Templien 11 Carol Gendler 13 Jim Meier 13 Ric Miller 16 Mary Sue Riley 17 Luke McNeese 20 Steve McWhorter 25 Mike Jones 31
Let's go to Toronto in June 23-27, 2018 for the Rotary International (RI) Convention!
There is no experience for a Rotarian quite like an International Convention. Meet old friends and make new ones from around the world. Hear great speakers and enjoy fabulous entertainment. Participate in the many breakout sessions on topics of interest to you. Stroll through the House of Friendship. Enjoy the many restaurants and tourism opportunities that Toronto has to offer. The next several RI Conventions will be outside of North America, so it's a good time to go this year. You will not believe it, but it's really not expensive to fly to Toronto. We did a random search online and the round trip ticket ranges from as low as $220 to $400. Of course, it could go higher if you fly business class, but the general fares are pretty good.
To register for the RI Convention, please click here. If you need help with your registration, please contact Jill or Yolanda.
To find out about speakers at other Rotary Clubs in the area, you can conveniently see the list of Club websites here. Then click on the home icon to the left of the club name. The list of speakers are listed on their Homepage.
Understanding the value of The Rotary Foundation . . .
When asked what participants want to get out of Rotary training and meetings, we hear things like the statements above.
Meeting all of those needs is a challenge - but there is an answer – the Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI).
RLI has been available in District 5650 since 2006. The curriculum and format were improved in 2009 and we expanded to partner with District 6000 in Iowa in 2012. There have been nearly 275 Rotarians participate in our local program.
Rotary Leadership Institute (RLI) was designed to provide discussion and activity-based programs. There is time to go into detail on many topics. It is not focused on a particular Rotary position but allows an opportunity for participants to truly discover Rotary.
All Rotary members benefit from the RLI experience. Rotary Club leadership can be more effective because of their expanded knowledge and connections made during RLI sessions.
RLI is a three-part program. Each RLI participant attends three one-day sessions. Our goal is to offer each Part with every meeting date (pending a sufficient number of registrations).
Upcoming session dates:
March 3, 2018 - Hosted by District 6000 in Iowa City
April 21, 2018 - Hosted by District 5650 likely in Omaha
October 6, 2018 - Hosted by District 5650 likely in Omaha
November 3, 2018 - Hosted by District 6000 likely in Des Moines
We are now offering 10 punch lunch tickets ($160) and 10 punch meeting-only tickets ($70) for sale at the meetings. Get one and don't worry about having cash or getting out your credit card! For sale at check-in.
MONDAY BELLEVUE 12:00 PM (DJ's Dugout, 10308 S. 23rd St.) NORTH 12:00 PM (Omaha Eppley Airport Conference Room) MILLARD 12:00 PM (German American Society, 3717 South 120th Street) - NO MEETING on Oct 9
TUESDAY MORNING 7:00 AM (Happy Hollow Country Club, 1701 S. 105th St.)
NORTHWEST 12:00 PM ( Effective August 15th Northwest Rotary will meet Tuesday's at noon at Jerico's, 11732 W Dodge Rd, Omaha, NE 68154.)
SOUTHWEST NIGHT 5:15 PM (DJ's Dugout at 17666 Welch Plaza, northeast corner of 180th & Q streets)
WEDNESDAY COUNCIL BLUFFS CENTENNIAL 1st Wed 7:00 AM; 3rd Wed floating event; no meeting other weeks (Hy-Vee in Mall of the Bluffs, I-80 Exit 5) DOWNTOWN 12:00 PM (Field Club, 3615 Woolworth Ave.)
THURSDAY COUNCIL BLUFFS NOON 12:00 PM (The Center, 714 S. Main St.)
SUBURBAN 12:00 PM (Anthony's, 7220 F St.)
WESTERN DOUGLAS COUNTY 7:00 AM (Elkhorn Common Ground Community Center, 1701 Veteran's Drive)
FRIDAY WEST 12:00 PM (Champions Run, 13800 Eagle Run Drive)
.png?_=636621883369145636)
.jpg)
The Rotaract Club based at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln, has embarked on a wheelchair project. The Rotaractors are raising money to send 120 wheelchairs to Ivory Coast and support the momentum of polio eradication in that country. Please make your gift to the Rotaract Wheelchair Project, Rotary Club of Lincoln 14 Foundation, PO Box 83843, Lincoln, NE 68501. Details about this project can be found 
