Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Future Dates
6/16/11 Golf Outing
6/22 Triathlon packets
6/25/11 Triathlon
06/29 Eric Lane—Hope Mission
7/13 no meeting—Fair
7/20 Sally Mahnken—CASA
>>>>OPENING
79 Optimists & 8 guests attended our meeting. Bob Tenney was the guest of Ed Nordstrom; Don Parker was the guest of Denny Andrews; Seth Ray was the guest of Everett Nifong; Mark Nunez was the guest of Andy Swihart; Tracey Rose was the guest of Bruce Hansen; Roger Krynock, John French, & Brian Ram-sey were the guests of John Teevan.
Door Greeter: Everett Nifong.
Prayer was offered by Jim Teevan.
Pledge was given to the American Flag.
Promise yourself was said in unison.
Birthday Honorees: Mike Cusick & Bruce Hansen. Luke Becknell led the Optimist Singers in the birthday song with Beatles results.
>>>> INFORMATION
Prayer List: Alan & Kristine Aldefer’s daughter Katherine as she fights her bone & muscle disease.
Membership: Scott Whitaker read Shawn William-son’s application. Everett Nifong sponsored Shawn.
Stonehenge Golf Outing June 16: Everett Nifong announced 22 teams are playing. He has lots of door prizes. Dave Illingworth is providing the 2011 Camry for the hole-in-one. Silveus Insurance, Esther Pflei-derer Trust, & Dane Miller are also sponsoring the hole-in-one.
Triathlon on June 25: Past Gov. Ron Donkers re-ported we have 598 registered. We expect 700 to 750. We are all invited to Ron & George’s storage building after our 6/22 meeting to finish the registra-tion packets. Jim Nesbitt reported help is needed 6/25 at 5:30am for parking. After we finish our tasks we need to pick up all the litter.
Past Gov. Ron Donkers is looking for past presi-dents to train new presidents in our district. Please see Ron.
Lt. Gov. Jim Reeve’s Cub Scout troop 3736 is hav-ing a yard sale 7/9. Please drop off items at Jim’s of-fice. Also 7/14 is Scout day at the fair. Scouts get in for free that day if they are wearing their uniform.
Andy Swihart presented Mark Nunez from Warsaw Little League a $700 check from our board.
Bruce Hansen presented Tracey Rose from Kosc. Co. Youth Soccer a $350 check from our board.
Stonehenge pro, Seth Ray, hopes to play 300 holes of golf on his marathon day of golf. He is raising money for the Indiana Golf Foundation & us! You can turn in your pledge at the Golf Shop.
Martin Becker reported the Optimist Singers are off until Aug. 10th.
Please see Craig Nayrocker if you are interested in writing our Optibullette newsletter when Craig is out.
50/50: Don Reinholt won $28.
Please pray for our Troops and Families:
LCpl Chris Foreman – Marines
Program: John Teevan recapped the Grace Col-lege Prison Education program. Grace graduated 140 prisoners this year, including 40 with bachelors degrees. Over the last 25 years Grace has gradu-ated 935 prisoners with over 300 with bachelors de-grees. An inmate gets a year off their sentence for an associates degree & 2 years for a bachelors. This time off has saved the state a lot of money. However with the current budget woes, the state is changing from liberal arts to vocational education of inmates. The usual recidivism rate is over 70%. Grace’s associates inmates have a 20% rate & their bachelors have a rate under 10%.
The Grace student/inmates benefited from the edu-cational, humanizing, & spiritual effects of their classes.
John Teevan along with instructors John French, Roger Krynock, & Brian Ramsey are moving into Grace’s Weber School in Ft Wayne & Indianapolis.