News - Rotary Club of Prince Frederick

Rotary Club of Prince Frederick

News

Here are links to the latest issues of our monthly newsletter, The Spokesman. You will need the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view these .pdf files.

Nov 2007

April 7. 2008: Commissioner Susan Shaw

Commissioner Susan Shaw

Commissioner Shaw talked about the County's excellent bond rating and the reasons for it. A healthy revenue stream, dealing with new pension funding requirements, and a growing commercial tax base all contribute to this.

March 31, 2008: Four-way Test Speech Contest

President Elect Dave Elkinton, Assistant District Governor Attie Ward, Club Member Martha Canfield, and the five contestants (Anthony Esser, Victoria Newman, Dynika Gross, Kavita Nadendla, their AP English teacher at Huntingtown High, Amy Gibson, and Jonas Williams.

The winner, Dynika Gross

This year's 4-way Test Speech Contest was the best in recent memory. All five contestants would no doubt have been winners in previous years. Advance Placement English teacher at Huntingtown High School, Amy Gibson, did a wonderful job in preparing her students. Club member, Martha Canfield, again, did a marvelous job of arranging the event, which was held at Trinty United Methodist Church with lots of family members there to support their sons, daughters, and siblings.

March 26, 2008: Rotary Day at Gallaudet

Rev. Kim Hall, Assistant Paster at Trinity United Methodist Church, is surrounded by club members Al Schwencer and Marsh Damerell at this year's Rotary Day at Gallaudet University. Ten students received Rotary scholarships at the event.

March 10, 2008: Greg Bowen, Director of Planning & Zoning, Calvert County

Greg gave us insight on the health of the Chespeake Bay and particularly the Patuxent River. He explained how Calvert County is working to help reduce the nutrient and sediment loads through modern techniques of septic systems, storm water runoff control, and the like. Sediment clouds the water making it difficult for needed subaquatic vegetation to thrive. Nutirnets provide the fuel for algal blooms which deplete the water of oxygen when they die and decompose.

Josh Weeks and Anna Price

Josh Weeks of the Interact Club at Patuxent High School gave us a report on RYLA held on Presidents' Weekend in Feburary. Anna Price, the faculty coordinator for the Interact Club thanked our club for rounding the $367 the Interact Club raised at the Bachelor/Bachlorette Audtion to $500 as a donation to Hunger Plus.

March 7, 200: Lexington Park Club's International Night

Stovy Brown, Ed Turbush, Jennifer Long, Larry Koppelburger, Paul Manchak, Ila Ahah, & Capt. Glen Ives

The Rotary Club of Lexington Park held its annual International Night on March 7. Invited are many exchange students in the Southern Maryalnd area. Various parts of Rotary's international programs are discussed. This year, Paul Manchak of the Lexington Park Club described three humanitarian grants that he has been conected with, including helping to certify one for education in Belize last month. Dr. Ila Shah of the Charlotte Hall Club talked about her activities in India, including polio reconstructive surgery and extensive help in the recovery after the earthquake in Gujarat of 2001. Stovy talked about this year's Group Study Exchange program with the Netherlands and the status of the tsumani follow-on project with District 3330 in Thailand. The keynote speaker was Captain Glen Ives who is in charge of the Patuxent Naval Air Station. Ed Turbush is the International Lane Director, Jennifer Long the past International Lane Director, and Larry Koppelburger is the president, all of the Rotary Club of Lexington Park.

March 3, 2008: Commissioner Linda Kelley

County Commissioner Linda Kelley covered a number of topics of news and interest in Calvert County. She expects building to begin in about 6 months at the Patuxent Business Park. The new indoor pool will be off the new loop road northwest of Prince Frederick. The cost of the pool is now about $18 million. The County's growth rate has slowed to 1.1% making it unnecessary to build a fifth high school. Instead, Calvert, Northern, and Patuxent will have their capacity increased to 1700 over the next few years. Linda is in favor of Volunteers in Police Service to augment the deputy force.

February 15-18, 2008: RYLA

Josh Weeks Kelsey Kreider Martha Canfield with Kim Conde

Rotary Youth Leadership Awards (RYLA) was held at Camp Letts at Edgewater over Presidents' Day holiday. Kelsey Kreider and Josh Weeks, both members of the Patuxent High School Interact Club, attended. On Monday, Martha Canfield ran into Kim Conde, a former president of the Interact Club. Kim is now a member of the College Park Rotaract Club and was assisting in the running of RYLA, as many Rotaractors do every year.

February 11, 2008: Sheriff Mike Evans

Calvert County Sheriff, Mike Evans, updated us on the various programs his office is doing to keep the crime down in our communities. With 103 deputies and the correctional facilities to manage, the Sheriff's Department has lots of management challenges. Our sheriff continues to work out imaginative ways to make officers more visible in neighborhoods and to control the traffic violations on our highways.

February 4, 2008: Special Olympic World Games - Shanghai

Stovy Brown gave a slide presentation on his time in Shanghai last October as an official in the sailing competition at the 2007 Special Olympic World Games.

January 28, 2008: Robin Brumgard, Chesapeake Cares Food Pantry

Robin Brumguard

Robin talked about the success of the food pantry started by the Chesapeake Church in Sunderland in 2001. Last year, more than 140,000 pounds of food were distributed to families in need. This pantry requires its beneficiaries to have a plan working toward self-sufficiency. Of the eight food pantries on Calvert County, Chesapeake Cares is the largest.

January 7, 2008: Marci DiMaggio and Sharon Kraemer, Chesapeake Highlands Memorial Gardens

Marci DiMaggio & Sharon Kraemer with President Lehman

Two representative of the new cemetery on Broomes Island Road gave us an overview of its operations and plans. They also gave us advice on helping to plan arrangements with a cemetery in the case of a death and how to make things go more smoothly for the family of the deceased.

December 17, 2007: Christmas Party

Club officers (Lisa Boyce, Dave Elkinton, Don Mozley, Warren Prince, & Carol Lehman) with Santa.

President Carol Lehman with her family's Advent Calendar.

Emily and Nathan Bowen sang traditional Christmas songs for us.

President Carol Lehman ran a most successful Rotary Christmas Party at Mamma Lucia's Restaurant in Prince Frederick. She related lots of anecdotes about her family's Christmas traditions. She brought a mid-twentieth century cardboard Santa with a Coca-Cola that her family has its holiday pictures taken with every year. The feature of the evening was lovely Christmas singing by former Brian Albright scholarship winner Nathan Bowen and his sister, Emily.

December 10, 2007: Senator Roy Dyson

State Senator Roy Dyson, who has represented Southern Maryland in Annapolis or Washington since 1974, spent most of his time with us talking about the need to address the problems with the Gov. Thomas Johnson Bridge linking Calvert and St. Mary's counties. His main point is that we should accelerate the study phase so we can have a solution before the existing span becomes unusable.